Privacy Policy

Football Fuss™ is developed and operated by an independent developer under the Sports Fuss™ name ("Football Fuss", "we", "us" or "our"). We are the controller of the personal information described in this policy. This means that we determine how and why that information is used, and we are responsible for protecting it and for answering any request you make about it.

Football Fuss is a small, independently run service. We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer, as the law does not require one for a service of this nature. Privacy questions and requests are handled directly by the developer responsible for the Services.

Any question about this policy may be sent to support@sportsfuss.com.

This policy applies to your use of the Football Fuss mobile application for Android and iOS (the "App"), the Football Fuss website (the "Website"), and the account, notification, email, feedback and support features associated with them (together, the "Services"). It applies whether or not you create an optional Football Fuss account (an "Account").

"Personal information" means any information that identifies you or could reasonably be used to identify you, either on its own or in combination with other information. UK data-protection law refers to this as "personal data". Information that has been anonymised so that it can no longer be linked to you is not personal information.

This policy does not apply to third-party websites, applications or services that the Services link to or display, such as club websites, news publishers, YouTube or Google Maps. Those services are governed by their own privacy policies, which we encourage you to read before providing them with any information.

The remainder of this policy contains the full detail. In summary:

• Fixtures, scores, tables, statistics and news can be viewed without creating an Account.
• An Account is optional. It holds your sign-in details, your favourite club and the competitions and matches you follow, so that they can be synchronised across devices.
• Notifications are optional and can be used without an Account.
• We send marketing emails, such as news of new features and releases, only if you opt in, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
• We use Firebase Analytics only with your consent. We use Firebase Crashlytics to receive crash reports, which you can switch off.
• We do not sell personal information.
• We do not request your precise location, contacts or photographs, and we never handle payment details.
• Advertising is shown only in the Android App, and your advertising privacy choices can be changed there at any time.
• You may delete your Account and its synchronised data at any time, either in the App or through the Website, and the deletion takes effect immediately.

Account information. An Account is created when you choose to sign in with Google, with Apple, or with an email address and password. When you do, we receive and store:

• your email address. If you sign in with Apple and choose to hide your email address, we receive a private relay address created by Apple instead;
• your name, as provided by your sign-in provider;
• your profile picture, if your sign-in provider supplies one. Google supplies a link to your Google profile picture; Apple does not supply a picture, and neither does an email-and-password Account;
• a unique account identifier issued by Firebase Authentication; and
• the dates on which your Account was created and linked, and the date on which it was last used.

Your profile picture is displayed only to you, within your Account screens in the App and on the Website. It is loaded from your sign-in provider and we do not store a copy of it on our servers.

We never receive or store your Google or Apple password. If you create an Account with an email address and password, the password is held by Firebase Authentication in a securely hashed form and is never visible to us.

Agreements and marketing choices. When you create an Account, you are asked to confirm that you have read our Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy. Separately, and optionally, you may tick a box to receive marketing emails (see section 4.3). We record which versions of the Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy you confirmed, whether you opted in to marketing, and when. If you created an Account before these choices were introduced, you will be asked the next time you sign in.

Age confirmation. Betting odds and match predictions are shown only to Account holders who confirm that they are 18 or over. If you choose to see them, we record that you confirmed and when. We do not ask for your date of birth, and we do not receive your age from Google or Apple. You may withdraw the confirmation at any time, which hides odds again.

Favourites and follows. If you have an Account, we store your favourite club and the competitions and matches you follow, together with the dates on which they were last changed, so that they can be synchronised between your devices. When you unfollow a competition or match, a record of that change is kept with your Account so that your other devices can apply it too.

Notification preferences. We store which types of alert you have enabled: kick-off, line-ups, goals, full-time results and highlights.

Feedback. You may send feedback through the App or the Website. Feedback consists of a rating from one to five, a written message of up to 2,000 characters, or both, together with the context described in section 2.2. Feedback is designed to be anonymous: the Services reject feedback messages that contain an email address or telephone number. If you would like a reply, please use the contact form or email us instead.

Contact form. The contact form on the Website asks you to choose a reason for your message (for example, support, a football data correction, or a partnership enquiry), to write your message, and, optionally, to give an email address so that we can reply. If you leave the email address blank, your message is anonymous and we cannot reply to it.

Correspondence. If you email support@sportsfuss.com, enquiries@sportsfuss.com or partnership@sportsfuss.com, or give an email address in the contact form, we receive your email address, your name if your email client includes it, and the content of your message and any attachments.

Please do not include passwords, payment details or sensitive personal information in feedback or correspondence.

Technical request information. Each time the App or the Website requests data from our servers, our hosting provider records standard technical information. This includes your IP address, the date and time of the request, the address of the page or data requested, your browser or device type (known as the user agent) and the response status. This information is used to operate and secure the Services.

Search queries. When you search for a club, competition or player, the text you type is sent to our servers so that matching results can be returned. Search queries are not linked to your Account, but, as with any other request, they may appear in technical request information for a short period.

Device and notification information. If you enable notifications, we store:

• a device notification token issued by Firebase Cloud Messaging, which allows alerts to be delivered to your installation of the App;
• your device platform (Android or iOS);
• the dates on which the token was registered and last confirmed; and
• an identifier for your installation of the App. If you are not signed in, this identifier is anonymous, as described in section 4.1.

Notification delivery records. For each alert we send, we record the identifier it was sent to and a reference to the match event concerned (for example, a particular goal in a particular match), so that the same alert is never delivered twice. These records contain no names or contact details.

Feedback context. When you submit feedback, the App or Website also sends: the type of feedback; the version of the App; your device platform; your language setting; and, where relevant, the screen, club or match to which the feedback relates. If you are signed in, your account identifier is attached so that the issue can be investigated in context. We may add an internal status and notes to feedback and contact messages while we handle them.

Usage analytics (with your consent). If you agree, Firebase Analytics collects information about how the App is used, so that we can understand which features are useful and where the App can be improved. This includes the screens you view, the features you use, when you open the App and for how long, the App version, your device model, operating system version, language setting and approximate country (derived from your IP address), and an identifier that Firebase generates for your installation of the App. We do not send your name, email address or account identifier to Firebase Analytics, and we do not use it for advertising. Analytics stays off unless you agree to it, and you can change your mind at any time in the App's settings.

Crash reports. If the App crashes or encounters a serious error, Firebase Crashlytics sends us a crash report. A crash report includes the technical details of the error, the App version, your device model and operating system version, the device's state at the time (such as available memory and storage, and screen orientation), and an identifier that Crashlytics generates for your installation of the App. Crash reports do not include your name or email address. You can switch crash reporting off in the App's settings.

Advertising information (Android only). The Google Mobile Ads software in the Android App may collect your IP address, device and advertising identifiers (including the Android Advertising ID), information about your device and the App, your interactions with advertisements, and diagnostic information. Further detail is given in chapter 5.

Information stored on your device. The App stores your preferences, favourites, follows and cached football data on your device so that it opens quickly and works when your connection is poor. This information remains on your device and is not sent to us unless you synchronise it to an Account.

The Website does not use analytics tools of any kind.

• Sign-in providers. When you sign in with Google or Apple, that provider shares your email address, name, a unique identifier and, in Google's case, a link to your profile picture with us through Firebase Authentication. We do not receive access to your contacts, files or any other data held in that account.
• Google advertising consent. In the Android App, Google's User Messaging Platform makes your advertising consent choices available to the App so that the advertisements shown respect those choices.
• Football-data providers and news publishers. We obtain fixtures, results, statistics and news from third-party sources. This information concerns football and the people involved in it, as described in section 2.4, and does not contain information about users of the Services.

Football Fuss publishes football information that includes personal information about players, managers, referees and other individuals involved in professional football. This may include names, photographs, nationality, age, playing position, squad number, appearances, match events (such as goals, substitutions and disciplinary cards), performance ratings, statistics and news coverage.

This information is obtained from licensed football-data providers, news publishers' feeds and other public sources, and relates to the public, professional sporting activity of the individuals concerned. We process it on the basis of our legitimate interests in providing football information and news, as set out in chapter 3. We do not publish private contact details or information about individuals' private lives.

If you are one of these individuals and wish to ask about, correct or object to information concerning you, please contact support@sportsfuss.com. Because much of this information is supplied by third parties, we may need to refer a correction to the original source.

The App asks for device permissions only when a feature needs them, and you can refuse or later withdraw any of them in your device settings (see the table in section 12.3). Refusing a permission only disables the feature that relies on it.

We do not request or collect:

• your precise device location;
• your contacts, photographs, files, camera or microphone;
• payment card or bank details, as the Services contain no purchases;
• your browsing activity on other websites or in other apps; or
• sensitive information, such as information about your health, beliefs or ethnic origin.

Notifications are disabled until you enable them. Once enabled, we send the alerts you have chosen (kick-off, line-ups, goals, full-time results and highlights) for your favourite club and the competitions and matches you follow. Alerts are delivered through Firebase Cloud Messaging, which passes them to Google's notification service on Android or Apple's notification service on iOS.

So that notifications can be provided without an Account, Firebase Authentication creates an anonymous identifier for your installation of the App. This identifier is not linked to your name or email address. If you later sign in, the notification registration for that device is moved to your Account and the anonymous identifier is deleted, so that you do not receive each alert twice.

You may choose which alerts you receive within the App. You may also disable notifications entirely in your device settings; the table in section 12.3 explains how.

If you have an Account, we may email you about matters concerning the Services themselves, whether or not you have opted in to marketing. These are:

• notice of a change to our Terms of Use or this Privacy Policy that affects you;
• notice of a security incident affecting your Account or information; and
• replies to requests or messages you have sent us.

Service emails are not marketing. We will never ask you for your password or for payment details by email.

With your consent, we send marketing emails about Football Fuss, such as announcements of new features, new releases of the App and updates on its development. We do not send marketing by text message or push notification, and we do not provide, rent or sell your information to any third party for its own marketing.

You are asked for consent when you create an Account, using a box that is not ticked in advance. Creating an Account does not depend on agreeing to marketing.

You may withdraw your consent at any time, by:

• using the unsubscribe link included in every marketing email;
• turning off marketing emails in your Account settings in the App or on the Website; or
• emailing support@sportsfuss.com.

Once you withdraw consent, we stop sending marketing emails straight away, although an email already being sent at that moment may still arrive. We keep a record that you opted out, so that you are not contacted again by mistake.

Advertising allows Football Fuss to remain free of charge. The Android App displays advertisements through Google Mobile Ads. The iOS App and the Website do not currently display advertising, and do not include Google's advertising software.

We do not choose the individual advertisements you see, and we do not give Google your name, email address, Account information, favourites or follows. Google selects advertisements using the information its own software collects, as described in section 2.2, and in line with your advertising privacy choices.

Google acts as an independent controller for much of the information collected by its advertising software, and Google's own privacy policy applies to that information. Advertising information is collected by Google's software and is not stored with your Football Fuss Account.

Where the law requires it, including in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area, the App uses Google's User Messaging Platform to ask for your consent before showing personalised advertising, and to record your choices. Personalised advertising uses information about you to choose advertisements that are more likely to interest you. If you decline, advertisements may still be shown, but they will be selected without using your personal information for personalisation.

You may change these choices at any time through Ad privacy choices in the App's settings, which is shown wherever the law requires it.

Your Android Advertising ID belongs to your device rather than to the App, so it is reset or deleted in your device settings rather than in Football Fuss; the table in section 12.3 explains how. You can also manage how Google uses information for advertising through the advertising settings of your Google account.

The following providers process personal information on our behalf, in accordance with our instructions and solely to provide their services to us. They are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.

Certain background tasks, principally retrieving football data and deciding which notifications to send, run on a privately operated server under our control. That server uses only the notification information described in section 4.1 and the follows needed to decide who should receive each alert.

Some third parties determine for themselves how they use the information they receive, under their own privacy policies:

• Google Mobile Ads and the User Messaging Platform, for advertising in the Android App (see chapter 5);
• Google Maps, when you open a location such as a stadium;
• YouTube, when you play a video shown in the Services; and
• your sign-in provider, Google or Apple, when you sign in.

When you follow a link to another website, such as a club's official website or a news article, that website receives standard request information from your browser, including your IP address. A link does not indicate that the organisation concerned operates, endorses or sponsors Football Fuss unless we expressly state otherwise.

When you share a match or article, the sharing is handled by your device's own share function. We do not see with whom you share it or what you add to it. When you add a match to your calendar, the event is created on your device and is not sent to us.

We may disclose personal information where we reasonably believe this is necessary to:

• comply with applicable law, regulation or a valid legal process, such as a court order;
• respond to a lawful request from a public authority, including a law enforcement agency;
• enforce our terms or investigate potential breaches of them; or
• protect the rights, safety or property of Football Fuss, its users or others, including to prevent fraud or abuse.

Where we are permitted to do so, we will tell you about such a request before disclosing your information. We disclose only the information that is necessary to meet the request.

If Football Fuss, or any part of it that holds personal information, is transferred to another person or organisation, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. The recipient would be required to use it in accordance with this policy, and we would notify you before your information became subject to a different privacy policy.

We may share personal information in other circumstances at your request or with your consent. For example, if you ask us to send a copy of your information to another organisation, we will do so in accordance with your instructions.

You may delete your Account at any time, by any of the following methods:

• in the App, under Settings → Account → Delete my data;
• on the Website, at /account/deletion, if you no longer have access to the App; or
• by emailing support@sportsfuss.com from the email address associated with your Account.

A successful deletion made in the App removes the following from our active systems immediately:

• your Account record, including your email address and name;
• your sign-in identity in Firebase Authentication;
• your favourite club and the competitions and matches you follow;
• your notification preferences;
• your records of agreement to our Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy, your marketing choices and any confirmation that you are 18 or over;
• all device notification tokens registered to your Account; and
• the records of notifications sent to you.

Any feedback you submitted is no longer associated with your Account, and is otherwise retained only as described in chapter 9.

Deleting your Account does not remove:

• contact-form messages and emails you have sent to us, which you may ask us to delete separately;
• usage analytics and crash reports, which are not linked to your Account and expire as described in chapter 9;
• information stored only on your device, which you can remove by clearing the App's data or uninstalling it;
• information held by Google for advertising purposes, which you can manage through your device's advertising settings and your Google account; or
• football information about public figures, which is not linked to your Account.

To protect your Account, we will ask you to make an email deletion request from the email address associated with your Account, or to confirm your identity in another reasonable way. Deletion requests made by email are handled without undue delay and, in any event, within one month. We will confirm by email once the deletion is complete.

Under UK data-protection law, and subject to its conditions and exemptions, you have the following rights:

• Right of access. You may ask whether we hold personal information about you and request a copy of it, together with information about how it is used.
• Right to rectification. You may ask us to correct personal information that is inaccurate, or to complete information that is incomplete.
• Right to erasure. You may ask us to delete your personal information. You can delete your Account yourself at any time, as described in chapter 10.
• Right to restrict processing. You may ask us to limit how we use your personal information, for example while we check its accuracy or consider an objection.
• Right to object. You may object to our processing of your personal information where we rely on legitimate interests. We will stop unless we have compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, or need the information for a legal claim.
• Right to object to direct marketing. You may tell us at any time to stop sending you marketing. This right is absolute: we will always stop.
• Right to data portability. You may ask to receive the personal information you provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, or to have it transferred to another organisation where technically feasible.
• Right to withdraw consent. Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

To exercise any of these rights, email support@sportsfuss.com, stating the right you wish to exercise and, where possible, the information or feature your request concerns.

Making a request is free. The law allows us to charge a reasonable fee, or to refuse a request, only if it is manifestly unfounded or excessive, for example if it is clearly made to cause disruption rather than to exercise a right, or repeats a request we have just answered in full. If we ever decided that a request fell into that category, we would explain why, and you could challenge that decision with the Information Commissioner's Office.

We may ask for information to confirm your identity before acting on a request, for example by asking you to write from the email address associated with your Account. This protects your information from being disclosed to, or deleted by, someone else.

We will respond without undue delay and within one month of receiving your request. Where a request is complex, or where you have made several requests, this period may be extended by up to two further months, in which case we will inform you of the extension and the reasons for it within the first month.

Many choices can be made directly, without contacting us. The table below shows where to find each one. Menu names can differ slightly between device makers and software versions.

You can also use Football Fuss without creating an Account at all.

If you are dissatisfied with how we have handled your personal information, please contact support@sportsfuss.com in the first instance so that we can address your concern. We will acknowledge a privacy complaint within 30 days, investigate it, and inform you of the outcome without undue delay.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office, which is the UK's independent authority for data protection, or with the data-protection authority in the country where you live or work. We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concern first.