Privacy Policy

The controller of your personal data is Tech Improvement Inc, [address — set in Administration], United States. For any privacy question or request, contact [privacyEmail — set in Administration].

This policy explains how FootballPlazza handles personal data in line with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

• We collect only what we need to run your account, your membership and the site securely.
• We do not sell your data or show advertising. Analytics and advertising-measurement cookies (Google Analytics through Google Tag Manager) are used only while we have switched them on and you accept them in the cookie banner.
• Card payments are handled by Stripe; we never see your full card number.
• Our football data supplier, Sportmonks, receives no personal data about you.
• You can download your data and delete your account yourself, in Account → Privacy & data.

Account data: your name, email address, password (stored only as a salted scrypt hash, never in readable form), account role and the date you registered.

Consent records: the policy version you accepted when you registered, your confirmation that you are 18 or older, and, if you are signed in, the cookie choices you make, each with a timestamp.

Security data:

• active sign-in sessions: a browser and operating system summary such as "Firefox on Windows", when the session started, when it was last active and when it expires. We do not store your full IP address or full browser identifier with sessions.
• two-factor sign-in, if you turn it on: an encrypted authenticator secret and one-way hashes of your recovery codes
• a security audit log of events such as sign-ins, failed sign-ins, password changes and administrative changes to your account
• short-lived rate-limit counters, keyed by a one-way hash of your IP address or email address, to stop password guessing

Membership data: your plan, subscription status, renewal and end dates, the leagues you chose, any complimentary access, and the customer and subscription references Stripe gives us. Your payment card details go directly to Stripe.

Community data, if you take part: your public nickname, your crowd votes and your leaderboard results.

Favourites and alerts, if you use them: the teams you follow, the fixtures you save while signed in, your alert settings, the private link of your calendar feed and records of the alert emails we sent.

Messages: what you write to us, for example in support emails.

Technical data: our hosting provider's web servers may log requests (including IP address, time, page requested and browser) for security and troubleshooting.

Stored only on your device: fixtures you save while signed out, your slip builder, dismissed announcements, your cookie choice and, if you allow it, your preferences. These are kept in your browser's storage and are not sent to us (see the Cookie Policy). When you sign in, fixtures saved on that device are added to your account once so they appear on your other devices.

We do not ask for special categories of data, such as health data, and we do not use your data for profiling or automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you. Our predictions are about football matches, not about people.

• To provide your account and the features you use (sign-in, saved settings, community features, alerts you switch on) — performance of our contract with you, GDPR Article 6(1)(b).
• To sell and manage memberships (checkout, renewals, plan changes, cancellations) — contract, Article 6(1)(b).
• To keep tax and accounting records — legal obligation, Article 6(1)(c).
• To keep FootballPlazza and your account secure (sessions, two-factor sign-in, rate limits, audit log, preventing fraud and abuse) — our legitimate interest in a secure service, Article 6(1)(f).
• To keep proof of what you agreed to (policy acceptance, age confirmation, cookie choices) — legal obligation and our legitimate interest in demonstrating compliance, Articles 6(1)(c) and 6(1)(f).
• To remember optional preferences in your browser — your consent, Article 6(1)(a). You can withdraw it at any time with Cookie settings in the site footer.
• To send service messages (security notices, billing and important changes) — contract and legitimate interests.
• To answer your questions and requests — legitimate interests, and legal obligation for data protection requests.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you may object; see "Your rights" below.

We use these service providers. They process personal data on our behalf under data processing terms, except where stated:

• Stripe — payment processing, subscriptions, invoices and fraud prevention. Stripe also acts as an independent controller for some purposes, such as fraud prevention and meeting its own legal obligations; see Stripe's privacy policy at stripe.com/privacy.
• Hosting provider: [hostingProvider — set in Administration] — runs our servers and stores our database and backups.
• Email provider: [emailProvider — set in Administration] — delivers account, security and alert emails.

Sportmonks, our football data supplier, receives no personal data: our server requests football data from Sportmonks, and your browser does not connect to Sportmonks.

We may also disclose data where the law requires it (for example to a court or authority), to professional advisers bound by confidentiality, or to a buyer of our business, who would have to respect this policy. We never sell personal data.

The cookie banner offers Analytics and Marketing only while we have switched on Google Tag Manager. While it does not show them, none of the processing below happens and nothing from Google is loaded. When it does, nothing is loaded until you accept, and only for the categories you accept:

• What is collected: Google Tag Manager loads Google Analytics 4 and, if you accept Marketing, Google's advertising measurement. Google receives your IP address (used to derive an approximate location), browser and device details, the pages you view and events such as searches, sign-ups and sign-ins, checkouts started, memberships bought (plan, price, currency and an order reference), promotion codes applied, crowd votes, teams followed, fixtures saved, notification opt-ins, value-finder filters and links shared. We never send your name, email address, account ID or payment details, and we remove tokens and email addresses from page addresses before anything is sent.
• Who receives it: Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland. For Google Analytics, Google acts as our processor under Google's data processing terms; for advertising measurement, Google may act as an independent controller under its own terms.
• Why, and the legal basis: to understand how FootballPlazza is used so we can improve it, and to measure whether our own adverts on other sites work — your consent, GDPR Article 6(1)(a).
• How long: the cookies are kept as listed in the Cookie Policy (_ga up to 2 years, _gcl cookies 90 days). Event data is kept for the retention period set in our Google Analytics property, at most 14 months; aggregated reports without personal data may be kept longer.
• International transfers: Google may process the data in the United States and other countries. Transfers to Google LLC are covered by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, for which Google LLC is certified, and by the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses in Google's terms.
• Withdrawing your consent: choose Cookie settings at the bottom of any page, then Reject all or switch off a category. It is as easy as accepting: we tell Google's tags that consent is denied, delete the Google Analytics and advertising cookies, stop sending data and reload the page. If you are signed in, each choice is kept in your consent records. Withdrawal does not affect processing before it.

Some providers, such as Stripe, may process data outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States. Where that happens, the transfer is protected by an adequacy decision of the European Commission (such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, for certified companies) or by the Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses with additional safeguards where needed. You can ask us for more information at [privacyEmail — set in Administration].

• Account, consent and membership data — while your account exists. When you delete your account it is erased, except as listed below.
• Sign-in sessions — each session expires 7 days after sign-in (the token is renewed daily while you use the site) and is then removed. Signing out or deleting your account removes it at once.
• Password-reset links — 30 minutes. Two-step sign-in challenges — 5 minutes.
• Rate-limit counters — removed when their window ends, at most 1 hour.
• Security audit log — 180 days, then automatically deleted. Entries about a deleted account refer only to its internal identifier, never to your name or email, and expire on the same schedule.
• Payment records — when you delete your account we delete our membership records, but Stripe keeps invoices and transaction records for as long as tax, accounting and anti-money-laundering law requires.
• Community votes and nickname — while your account exists; on deletion they are deleted or irreversibly anonymised so that leaderboard history stays consistent.
• Support emails — as long as needed to deal with your request and any follow-up.
• Backups — database backups may contain your data until they are replaced under our backup routine.
• Data in your browser — until you remove it or clear your browser's site data.

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• access your data and receive a copy — use Download my data in Account → Privacy & data to get a JSON file with your profile, consents, sessions, two-factor status, security events and the data held by each feature
• data portability — the same download is in a structured, machine-readable format
• erasure — use Delete account in Account → Privacy & data; this erases your personal data straight away, apart from the records we must keep (see "How long we keep data")
• rectification — ask us at [privacyEmail — set in Administration] to correct your name or email address
• restriction and objection — ask us to limit how we use your data, or object to use based on legitimate interests
• withdraw consent at any time with Cookie settings in the footer, without affecting earlier use

For anything you cannot do in the app, email [privacyEmail — set in Administration] from the address on your account. We reply within one month, which can be extended by two further months for complex requests; we will tell you if that happens. We may ask you to confirm your identity.

Passwords are hashed with scrypt; session cookies are HttpOnly, Secure and SameSite and cannot be read by page scripts; state-changing requests are protected against cross-site request forgery; two-factor sign-in is available; authenticator secrets and integration keys are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM; recovery codes are stored as hashes; and administrative actions are recorded in an audit log. Administrators can only see what they need to run the service.

No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a personal data breach that is likely to put you at risk, we will tell you and the supervisory authority as the law requires.

FootballPlazza is only for adults aged 18 or over. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has created an account, contact [privacyEmail — set in Administration] and we will delete it.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, please contact us first at [privacyEmail — set in Administration]. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. Our lead supervisory authority is [supervisoryAuthority — set in Administration]. You may also complain to the authority in the EU country where you live, work or where you think the problem happened.

We will update this policy when our processing changes. The version and effective date are shown at the top of the page. We will tell signed-in members about important changes before they take effect.