Privacy Policy

On this website

• The contact form sends your name, email, the subject you pick and your message to the club by email, through Resend, and posts them in the club's staff chat, on Slack.
• The newsletter sign-up takes your email and name, and your mobile number if you choose texts. Your email joins the club's mailing list, through SendGrid, and every email has an unsubscribe link. If you tick the box for texts, we text you a confirmation, then club updates from time to time; reply STOP to any of them to stop. The club is told about each sign-up in its staff chat.
• Google Analytics uses cookies to count visits and see which pages are read, roughly where visitors are and what devices they use. We use it only to improve the site, never for advertising. You can block it in your browser's settings or with Google's opt-out add-on.

In the Portal

When you complete a form, we collect what the form asks for:

• The player's name, date of birth and gender, and for season registration their shirt size, kit needs, other sports and planned absences.
• The player's own mobile number: required for a player 18 or over, who can sign in with it, and optional for a younger player, so the club can reach them.
• The household address, phone and email, and the parents' or guardians' names, relationship to the player and phone numbers.
• Two emergency contacts.
• Optionally, the player's allergies and medical conditions, so a coach knows what to watch for.
• The family's physician and health insurance details, which the emergency medical release requires.
• The name, date of birth and relationship of the person filling in the form, their typed or drawn signature, their media consent choice, and how they intend to pay: in full, on a payment plan, or by asking for financial assistance, with any note they add about it.
• For tryout pre-registration, the player's name, date of birth, email and phone number, their playing positions and preferred jersey number, whether they have played for the club before, their years of experience and the highest level they have played.
• When you check in at a club event, your name, the time, the phone number and email the event asks for, and its own questions; at a tryout, the pinnie you were given. An event that collects the waiver at check-in also asks for your date of birth, to find your registration.
• Details club staff enter for a family before they register, such as names, dates of birth and phone numbers, so the form starts filled in.
• If you sign in, the phone number you enter, and any changes you make to your contact details.

If you pay dues online, you pay on Stripe's secure checkout: your card or bank details go to Stripe and never reach us. Stripe receives your family's name, its email if we have one, and a reference to your registration. We keep a record of each payment and refund (the amount, the date, how it was paid and whether it went through), of payments club staff record by hand, such as cash or a check, and of any request you make about dues, such as financial assistance or a payment plan.

Why we collect it

To register the player with the club, to complete the Illinois Youth Soccer Association emergency medical release and liability waiver or the club's own equivalent, to record media consent, to reach a parent or guardian in an emergency, to contact players about tryouts, to know who attended an event, to take and record dues, and to run the season. On this website, to answer your messages and send the news you signed up for. We use it for nothing else.

How it is stored

• Completed forms and the details behind them are encrypted before they are stored, on servers in the United States.
• At an event check-in, your phone number, email and any date of birth are encrypted before they are stored. Your name, the time and your answers are kept as entered so staff can see who is there. Your phone remembers your check-in for a week so you can come back to it, for example to add your pinnie.
• Roster details such as name, age, shirt size and contact information are copied to a spreadsheet the club's staff use to run teams. Allergies, medical conditions, physician and insurance details are never copied there.
• So you can sign in, your registration's phone numbers are also kept in a one-way scrambled form that can be matched against what you type but not read back. Contact details you change after signing in are encrypted like a form.
• Each player's name and birth year are also kept unencrypted in the club's player list, so staff can place players on teams. Everything else about a player stays encrypted.
• Your receipt email contains a link to your completed form that stops working after seven days. The form itself is not attached to the email.
• While you fill in a form, your progress is saved in your own browser so you can come back to it. It is removed when you submit and expires on its own after a week.
• A Cloudflare Turnstile check protects the Portal's forms from automated submissions. It may process your IP address and browser details for that purpose.

Who can see it

Club staff who need it to run the season, signing in with their Google account. Coaches see their players, teams and events, and how to reach a player's family, but not signed forms or payments. Email is sent through Resend, the mailing list is kept in SendGrid, texts are sent through Twilio and SimpleTexting, online payments go through Stripe, the staff chat is on Slack, visits are counted by Google Analytics, and both sites are hosted by Vercel; each processes data only to provide its service. We do not sell or share personal information for marketing.

Staff sign-in with Google

Staff sign in to the Portal's admin area with Google. We receive only the email address and name of the signed-in account, and use them only to confirm that the person belongs to the club. We store nothing else from Google and request no other access.

Text messages

Families and players who have registered can sign in to the Portal with a phone number on their registration. We text a one-time code to that number. You stay signed in on that browser for 90 days, or until you sign out. Signed in, you can see your registrations and update your contact details and phone numbers; medical and insurance details change only by registering again or asking the club.

If you agree to the club's texts, by ticking the box when you register or later, the club texts the phone numbers on your registration, including any other phones added to the family, about your registration and team: reminders about steps left and about dues, and schedules. Club news and offers are texted only to those who tick the separate box for them, or the newsletter's box on this website. None of these is required to register. Message frequency varies, and message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any text to stop them, or HELP for help. Sign-in codes, and the confirmation text when you sign up for the newsletter's texts, are sent through Twilio; the club's other texts come through SimpleTexting, from (815) 283-6330. Each receives the number in order to send them. We do not share phone numbers or consent to receive texts with anyone for marketing.

How long we keep it

Registrations, signed forms and payment records are kept for the season they cover and for as long as the club's record-keeping requires. Newsletter sign-ups stay on the list until you unsubscribe, and messages from the contact form stay in the club's email and staff chat.

A parent or guardian, or an adult player, can ask us to delete their information at any time through the club's contact form. We then delete their registrations, signed forms, player records, payment records and sign-in details, along with any check-ins and tryout sign-ups, and their rows in the club's spreadsheet. Stripe keeps its own record of any online payment, as the law requires of it.

Children

Players under 18 are registered by a parent or guardian, who provides the information and signs on their behalf. Players 18 or over sign for themselves.

Questions

Send them through the club's contact form. If this policy changes, the date at the top will change with it.