What does this privacy policy cover?
This privacy policy describes how The Football Association Limited (collectively referred to as "The FA", "we" or "us") will make use of your data when collected, stored or processed through your use of The FA Player.
The FA Player uses information The FA group (being The FA, Wembley National Stadium Limited and National Football Centre Limited, together referred to as “The FA Group”) holds on you more generally, some of which you have provided to The FA, through its single customer view, this privacy policy explains how that information will be processed in relation to your use of The FA Player.
Where you consent to direct marketing, your personal data will be processed in accordance with The FA Group Privacy Policy.
This privacy policy also describes your data protection rights, including a right to object to some of the processing. More information about your rights, and how to exercise them, is set out in the “What rights do I have?” section.
Summary of how we use your data
- The FA Player is a web-based product (app and website) that allow fans to access live matches, highlights and content.
- We use cookies and, where you consent, other tracking technologies to make The FA Player function better and to personalise your experience of using The FA Player. Please refer to our cookies policy for more information on how we use cookies and how you can restrict the use of some of the cookies.
- Where we rely on your consent, such as for direct marketing purposes, or to place cookies, you can withdraw this consent at any time.
- Our privacy policy sets out more details of your data protection rights, including your right to object to certain processing.
What information do we collect through The FA Player?
The FA collects and processes personal data about you when you interact with The FA Player, and when you register for The FA Player. This will include:
- your name and password;
- your date of birth;
- your email address;
- your gender;
- your FAN; and
- your marketing preferences, including any consents you have given us.
What information do we receive from third parties?
We may generate or collect information about you ourselves or from third parties relating to your use of The FA Player. Further details on this is set out in our cookies section and our cookies policy.
How do we use this information, and what is the legal basis for this use?
We process this information for the following purposes:
- As required by The FA to conduct its business and pursue its legitimate interests, in particular:
- monitoring use of The FA Player, and using this to help us personalise, monitor, improve and protect our content, services and sites, and investigate any complaints received from you or from others about The FA Player or how The FA Player has been used;
- to ensure that the content you are attempting to access through The FA Player can be accessed from the location you are in;
- we use information you provide as well as information which we have collected about you to investigate any complaints received from you or from others, about The FA Player;
- we will use data in connection with legal process or compliance, regulatory and investigative purposes as necessary (including disclosure of such information in connection with legal process or to other relevant regulators as appropriate); and
- we use data of some individuals to invite them to take part in market research.
- Where you give your consent:
- we will send you direct marketing in relation to our relevant products and services, or other products and services provided by The FA or The FA’s official partners and suppliers – this is described in the FA Group Privacy Policy, together with information on your rights. You should have seen this when you first registered for a FAN; and
- we place cookies and use similar technologies in accordance with our cookies policy and the information provided to you when those technologies are used.
- For purposes which are required by law:
- in response to requests by government or law enforcement authorities conducting an investigation.
Withdrawing consent
Wherever The FA relies on your consent, you will always be able to withdraw that consent, although it may have other legal grounds for processing your data for other purposes, such as those set out above.
What cookies and/or tracking technologies does The FA Player use?
When you use The FA Player (through the website or the app), we may also collect, process and use information about you and your use of the website and/or app, including how you arrived at our website or app, how long you view content on The FA Player and what location you access The FA Player from. Such information may be collected through "traffic data" and may entail the use of "cookies" or other tracking technologies, IP addresses or other numeric codes used to identify your computer. For more information on Cookies please click on the link to our cookies policy.
Apple iOS and Android Devices
If you access The FA Player app from these devices you consent to cookies being stored to your device (and other tracking technologies being used to read data from your device) for the following purposes: keeping you logged in, ensuring that an appropriate version of content is presented, analytics and advertising. Many of these cookies and technologies are essential to the operation of the application. It is not currently possible to opt out or remove these cookies (or prevent use of these technologies) from the device without deleting the application.
How is data shared, where and when?
We will share your personal data between The FA Group as necessary to provide the products and services you have requested, to maintain a single customer view across The FA Group and to fulfil any of the other purposes set out above.
We will share your data with relevant third parties for the purposes set out above.
Personal data may be shared with government authorities and/or law enforcement officials if required for the purposes above, if mandated by law or if required for the legal protection of our legitimate interests in compliance with applicable laws.
Personal data will also be shared with third party service providers, who will process it on behalf of The FA for the purposes identified above. Such third parties include providers of website and app platform hosting services and marketing suppliers. Some of our suppliers may be separate data controllers, such as market research organisations, and may provide you with their own privacy notice where appropriate.
If at any point your information is transferred outside the EEA, and where this is to a stakeholder or vendor in a country that is not subject to an adequacy decision by the EU Commission, data will be adequately protected by EU Commission approved standard contractual clauses, an appropriate Privacy Shield certification or a vendor's Processor Binding Corporate Rules.
What rights do I have?
You have the right to ask us for a copy of your personal data; to correct, delete or restrict (stop any active) processing of your personal data; and to obtain the personal data you provide to us for a contract or with your consent in a structured, machine readable format.
In addition, you can object to the processing of your personal data in some circumstances (in particular, where we don’t have to process the data to meet a contractual or other legal requirement, or where we are using the data for direct marketing).
These rights may be limited, for example if fulfilling your request would reveal personal data about another person, where it would infringe the rights of a third party (including our rights) or if you ask us to delete information which we are required by law to keep or we have a compelling legitimate interests in keeping. Relevant exemptions are included in both the GDPR and in the Data Protection Act 2018. We will inform you of relevant exemptions we rely upon when responding to any request you make.
To exercise any of these rights, you can get in touch with The FA – or its data protection officer – using the details set out below. If you have unresolved concerns, you have the right to complain to an EU data protection authority where you live, work or where you believe a breach may have occurred. This is likely to be the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK.
Data that is mandatory is clearly indicated throughout the registration journey for The FA Player. Where provision of data is mandatory, if relevant data is not provided, then we will not be able to fulfil your request to register for The FA Player. All other provision of your information is optional.
How do I get in touch with you, or your data protection officer?
If you wish to make a data privacy request, you can do so via our online form, which can be found here. We hope that we can satisfy queries you may have about the way we process your data. If you have any concerns about how we process your data, you can get in touch at dataprotection@thefa.com or by writing to: Data Protection Officer, Wembley Stadium, PO Box 1966, London, SW1P 9EQ.
Who is my data controller?
The data controller for your information is The FA.
How long will you retain my data?
Where we process data in connection with your registration to use The FA Player or your use of The FA Player we do this for as long as you are an active user of The FA Player. We retain your information in respect of The FA Player for two full seasons after your account has become inactive. We consider you to be an inactive user if you have not used The FA Player in the last 12 months . For the avoidance of doubt, any other data held by us, as a result of your other interactions with The FA, may be held for a longer period.
Where we process personal data for marketing purposes or with your consent, we process the data until you ask us to stop and for a short period after this (to allow us to implement your requests). We also keep a record of the fact that you have asked us not to send you direct marketing or to process your data indefinitely so that we can respect your request in future.
Where we process personal data to meet legal requirements, we hold this for as long as the law requires.
Where your data is held on FA systems, then at the end of the retention periods set out above, we will not irrevocably delete your information for another 3 months – your data will be held in an inactive form for this time to ensure that any consequential links across our systems remain intact in the event that your data is removed in a particular location.
