Privacy Policy

The Play Their Way campaign has been developed and led by UK Coaching on behalf of the Children’s Coaching Collaborative (CCC), which is made up of 16 charities and sporting organisations; Sport England, UK Coaching, Activity Alliance, Youth Sports Trust, Boing Kids, UK Active, I Coach Kids, Street Games, Women in Sport, Salisbury Rovers FC, CIMSPA (Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity), Leap (Buckingham & Milton Keynes Active Partnership), NSPCC, Chance to Shine, Rise (Tyne & Wear Active Partnership) and Mind.

The campaign is backed by expertise, insight and significant funding from Sport England.  

In this policy ‘UK Coaching’, ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ means: 

UK Coaching, registered charity (327354). 

Registered Offices at: 2 City Walk, South Bank, Leeds LS11 9AR  

UK Coaching is the brand name of the National Coaching Foundation. As an active charity, we invest every penny to transform coaching for the future. Great coaching encourages people to be more active and lead healthier lifestyles, and our mission is to put coaching at the heart of physical activity and sport. 

UK Coaching is the Data Controller of your personal information. This means it is our responsibility to determine how your personal information will be used and to make sure that use complies with any applicable data protection laws (in conjunction with other parties, where applicable). 

When you register on the website and/or mobile app to become part of the Play Their Way community, we will ask for your email address, name and password. 

This is so we can: 

• verify you are 'You' (and not a robot). This information helps us to maintain the security and privacy of your account. Nobody will ever see your password, and we never display your email. We also collect and record your date of birth to ensure that we do not actively share or market to 13–18-year-olds in specific situations or share their data with a third party deemed inappropriate. By confirming your age, we can also tailor the browsing experience to your interests and needs. We are committed to protecting the privacy of our community, especially our young members between the ages of 13-18.
• send you regular updates on the Play Their Way movement and give you access to resources and events available to you. We send these to pursue our legitimate interest of creating a nation of “child-first” coaches. We will not send you emails if you have opted out of receiving them. You can easily opt-out at any time by logging into your account and selecting opt out on the ‘preference page’, by clicking on the unsubscribe links in the emails or by contacting [email protected].

If you work for an organisation and opt in to receive our partner email updates, we will ask for your email address and name. We will also ask you for your organisation and job title so we can better understand who we are reaching and send you more relevant updates. As above, if you no longer wish to stay up to date on campaign developments and help promote child-first coaching, opt out at any time by logging into your account and selecting opt out on the ‘preference page’, by clicking on the unsubscribe links in the emails or by contacting [email protected]. 

If you are associated with a national governing body of sport and have given us consent to contact you, we will get in touch to discuss how we can support you with integrating a child-first coaching approach in your organisation. 

When you book a place at a Play Their Way in-person or online event, such as our coffee catch-ups, we ask for your contact details so that we can keep in touch with you about the arrangements for the event.  

Where appropriate ,we also ask you to tell us about any dietary and accessibility needs so we can cater to your needs and make your experience a comfortable one. 

Those under the age of 18 must obtain parental consent to register and attend our events. 

Registering for the event constitutes acceptance of its terms and conditions, which are displayed on the third-party website used for taking bookings, such as Trybooking.com. 

When it comes to research, sometimes we work with third parties to collect data for us.  

Here's what you need to know: 

• Third-Party Researchers: We may partner with other organisations to conduct research on our behalf. This means that these companies will collect data on our behalf and provide it to us.
• What Data They Collect: The data they collect might include information like your name, email address, video recordings and answers to questions we ask as part of the research.
• Why We Collect This Data: We collect this data to help us better understand our target audience and improve our ability to achieve our goal of creating a nation of “child-first” coaches.
• How We Protect Your Data: We make sure that the third-party researchers we work with follow strict privacy and security standards. We also require them to delete your data once the research is complete.
• Your Choices: If after participating in the research you don't want to hear from UK Coaching and Play Their Way in the future, no problem. You can opt out of being contacted by indicating "no" on the recontact form that the research agency will give you.

The Play Their Way mobile app (“the App”) has been developed to support our mission of creating a nation of child first coaches by providing accessible tools, content, and guidance. Our processing remains aligned with the principles set out in this privacy policy, including our commitment to only storing the personal data needed to deliver our services and to keeping your information safe.  

App Stores: 

To access the Play Their Way App, users download it through Google Play or the Apple App Store. These app marketplaces act as data controllers for information associated with: 

• App download and installation
• Device level permissions

Your interactions with these platforms are governed by their respective privacy policies. 

Play Their Way App – Permissions & Settings: 

You have full control over how the Play Their Way app accesses features on your device. All permissions can be managed or withdrawn at any time via your phone’s app settings. 

Below is a clear explanation of why the Play Their Way app may request access: 

• Location (Geolocation) - Used to display events, activities, and opportunities near your location.
• Contacts - Enables you to share content and connect with people you already know.
• Media Library - Allows you to upload documents (such as session plans) and select images from your device.
• Photo Library - Used to choose a profile picture and upload photos or documents where required.
• Microphone - Enables voice recording for submitting questions or instructions to receive personalised feedback.
• Notifications -Allows the app to send important updates and account-related information.
• Background Activity - Supports background updates to keep content current and improve overall app performance.

AI and Voice Features – SpeechtoText Processing 

If you choose to use features within the App that allow you to record your voice (for example, as part of an AIpowered coaching tool), the App will use Google Cloud’s SpeechtoText API to convert your audio into text.  This is done to generate prompts or responses within the App’s AI functionality. 

• Voice recordings are processed securely
• Data is used solely to generate the requested AI output
• We do not use or store these recordings for any marketing or profiling

This aligns with our commitment to using only the information needed to deliver the service.  

Registration, Login and Consent Management 

To provide secure access to both the Play Their Way website and the mobile app, we use Auth0 as our identity and authentication provider. Through Auth0 we manage: 

• User registration
• Secure login
• Password management
• Consent and permissions agreements for App features

Push Notifications 

The website and mobile App uses OneSignal to deliver optional push notifications.
These may include: 

• Updates on new features or content
• Event reminders
• Child first coaching insights
• App related announcements

You can opt in or out of Mobile app notifications at any time through your device settings on the app. We will never send emails without your consent, in line with the standards outlined in our policy.  

We achieve this by targeting our advertising on specific types of websites, such as newspaper and magazine sites. Additionally, we also use online platforms, such as Facebook and Google, to reach individuals based on the information that these platforms have on them. 

We may employ various re-marketing techniques across certain online platforms to target specific audiences. 
We may use various re-marketing methods to reach people across certain online platforms to target people who might be interested in Play Their Way. 

Here's how it works:  

• 'Look-alike' / 'Similar' audiences: If you have given us your consent we may share a list of email addresses with platforms like Facebook or Google, but in a way that protects your personal information (it's turned into a code called a "hash"). You will always be in control and have the option to opt out.
• Custom Audiences: We may also use this same method to share information about our marketing campaigns with people who have already shown interest by signing up for them.
• Saved Audiences: We may keep track of who on Facebook is most likely to respond to our ads.
• Tracking Interactions: We keep track of when someone clicks on one of our ads so we can see how well our campaigns are working.

This means that if you've already visited our website and/or mobile app, we might show you ads for our website on other sites you visit. This is done by third-party companies like Google and Facebook, who use cookies to remember that you've visited our site. If you'd rather not have your information used this way, you can choose to opt out by adjusting your cookie preferences when you visit our site. Just choose "essential only" and you're all set.  

If you registered with Play Their Way via a Facebook form as detailed on sign-up, Facebook will also use your data subject to their data policy, including auto-filling forms for their ads. View Facebook Data Policy. 

Under the UK GDPR, you have the right to: 

• obtain access to, and copies of, the personal data that we hold about you;
• require us to correct the personal data we hold about you if it is incorrect;
• require us to erase your personal data in certain circumstances;
• require us to restrict our data processing activities in certain circumstances;
• receive from us the personal data we hold about you which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you, including for the purpose of your transmitting that personal data to another data controller;
• object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to any of our particular processing activities where you feel this has a disproportionate impact on you (including the use of your data for direct marketing); and
• where our processing is based on your consent, withdraw that consent, without affecting the lawfulness of our processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please see details below. Please note that these rights are not absolute and we may be entitled (or required) to refuse requests where exceptions apply.  

If you are not satisfied with how we are processing your personal data, you can submit a complaint to us by emailing [email protected] or write to: Data Protection Team at UK Coaching, 2 City Walk, South Bank, Leeds LS11 9AR.

When you make a data protection complaint to us, we will: 

• acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 30 days;
• take appropriate steps to investigate your complaint, including by making appropriate enquiries within the organisation and with any relevant third parties, without undue delay;
• keep you updated on the progress of our investigation;
• if necessary, request further information from you about your complaint to aid our investigation; and
• provide you with a clear outcome of your complaint.

If you remain dissatisfied after you have received an outcome of your complaint from us, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You can also find out more about your rights under the UK GDPR (and other data protection legislation) from the Information Commissioner's Office website available at: www.ico.org.uk. 

If you want to check something about the information we store about you, email us at [email protected] and we’ll try to answer your question as quick as we can. 

If you want to make a more formal request, in the form of a Subject Access Request, you can do so by submitting this form.  

We will respond to you as soon as possible to check that you are 'You'.  

We will then send you your data securely within one month of your request. Under the Data Use and Access Act 2025, we may pause (“stop the clock”) while awaiting identity verification, clarification of the request’s scope, or in specific circumstances where a fee may apply, with the response deadline resuming once the required information is received. 

If you want us to remove any data, we hold about you then you can phone us or complete a request form We will respond to you as soon as possible to check that you are 'You' and we will respond with a confirmation within one-month.  

If we cannot not remove the data you’ve requested (for example, for other legal reasons), we will respond to you within one-month to let you know why.  

If you believe any information, we hold about you is please contact us at [email protected], and we’ll do our best to check it and put it right. 

If you want us to remove any data we hold about a deceased dependant please contact us at [email protected].