Privacy

What we collect when you take part in a club poll, why we need it, and how long we keep it.

Who we are

Sporting Opinion is run by Hutch Media Group, which is the data controller for everything described here. Any questions, or to ask us to delete your data, email hello@sportingopinion.org.

What we collect, and why

• The name you type. So the club can announce who won a prediction competition, or credit your photo if they use it.
• Your email address, if you give one. Optional for predictions. We use it to recognise your entry so you aren't counted twice, to let you change your prediction before kick-off, and, where your club runs the poll as a competition, to enter you into the prize draw. If your entry is the one drawn, we pass your name and email to the club so they can arrange your prize. That is the only time your address goes anywhere else, and we never send you marketing.
• For questions and photos, a verified email address. Sending the club a question or matchday photos starts with a six-digit code emailed to you. We do this so that abuse has a consequence: an address that sends something abusive is blocked. The address is attached to what you sent, is visible to the club alongside your question, and is used for nothing else.
• Your prediction or vote. That's the point of the thing.
• A scrambled version of your IP address. One-way, so it can't be turned back into an address. We use it only to spot the same connection submitting repeatedly, which keeps results honest. We don't store the address itself.

Fan matchday photos

Photos you send to your club are never public. There is no gallery and no shared link: the only people who can see them are signed-in staff of the club you sent them to, who can download the ones they want to use on the club's own channels, credited the way you asked.

Photos from a phone usually carry hidden data, including the precise location where they were taken. We read that data once, to help the club spot photos genuinely taken at the match, and then it is stripped: the copy the club sees and downloads carries none of it. Every photo is also checked automatically for abusive content before anyone sees it, using Google Cloud Vision, which processes the image for that check on our instructions and keeps nothing for its own purposes.

Everything you send is deleted automatically four days after the match. Anything the club chose to download before then is in the club's hands from that point, under its own responsibilities to you.

Cookies

We set one cookie, and only after you have actually voted. It holds the value 1, lasts seven days, and exists solely to stop the same browser voting twice in the same poll. It doesn't track you, it isn't read by anyone else, and it isn't used for advertising or analytics. Because it does nothing but keep a poll fair, we don't ask for consent to set it.

Visitor statistics

We count page views so we know whether anyone is actually seeing a poll. This is done by Vercel Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. It records the page visited, roughly where in the world the visit came from, and what kind of device and browser you used. It doesn't record your IP address, and it can't follow you between websites or build a profile of you. Pages that carry a sign-in or password reset link are excluded from it entirely.

Our lawful basis

Legitimate interests: running a poll for the club whose link you followed, and keeping its result trustworthy. For photos, the consent you give when you send them, which you can withdraw at any time using the email address above. You can object to anything else here at any time the same way.

How long we keep it

Poll entries and questions: until the end of the season they relate to, then they're deleted. We don't keep fan details from previous seasons. Matchday photos: four days after the match, then they're deleted automatically. Verification codes: minutes, a day at the very most.

Who else is involved

Data is stored with Supabase on servers in Ireland, the site is hosted by Vercel, who also provide the visitor statistics described above, emails are sent through Resend, and photos are checked for abusive content by Google Cloud Vision. They process data on our instructions and for no purpose of their own. Your club receives the results, the names of anyone who got the score right, the questions and photos you send it, and the email address behind a question. The only other email address a club ever receives is that of a prize draw winner, so they can arrange the prize.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, and we will. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.