Summary of how your data is used by The Football Association Limited ("The FA") and your County Football Association (“County FA”)
- The FA and your County FA use your personal data for the purposes of processing your club’s application for FA Charter Standard accreditation (the “FACS Application”).
- If you are providing personal data in relation to a third party for the purposes of completing the FACS Application, you must make sure they are aware of this, and direct them to view this notice.
- Our privacy policy sets out more details of your data protection rights, including your right to object to certain processing.
What does this privacy policy cover?
This policy describes how The FA and your County FA will make use of your data when you complete your club’s FACS Application.
It also describes your data protection rights, including a right to object to some of the processing which The FA and your County FA carry out. More information about your rights, and how to exercise them, is set out in the “What rights do I have?” section.
What information does The FA and County FA collect about me?
The FA and your County FA collect and process personal data about you when The FA’s paper-based or soft copy editable PDF FACS Application is completed and submitted to your County FA. This includes:
FA Charter Standard Coordinator / Club Secretary / Club Welfare Officer:
- your name and FA number (FAN);
- your date of birth;
- your contact details, including email address, phone number, fax number and physical address; and
- your role within the club.
Managers, Coaches and other Club Officials:
- your name and FAN;
- your date of birth;
- your role within the club; and
- details of whether you have completed any mandatory or recommended checks or training, such as DBS checks, and when these expire.
Club Chairperson:
- your name.
What information does The FA and your County FA receive from third parties?
Sometimes, information is provided by third parties completing the FACS Application. In particular, your information may be entered by a Club Official at your current club, although this will initially be collected from you.
How do various parties use this information, and what is the legal basis for this use?
Your County FA will use this information for the following purposes:
- As required by your County FA to conduct and administer the game and pursue its legitimate interests, in particular:
- processing your club’s FACS Application to establish the eligibility of your club to obtain FA Charter Standard accreditation and to provide your club with FA Charter Standard accreditation (where appropriate);
- informing you of the process to be undertaken in respect of your club’s FACS Application and providing you with assistance in relation to that FACS Application;
- administering and providing support in relation to your club’s online Annual Health Check on Whole Game System, The FA’s football administration system;
- providing your club with a Charter Standard e-newsletter to communicate with you in relation to The FA and County FA initiatives, including those aimed at increasing participation and raising club standards in football; and
- ensuring that children and individuals at risk in the game are appropriately protected from harm, including safeguarding activities and checks of whether appropriate mandatory training and checks have been carried out.
The FA will use this information for the following purposes:
- As required by The FA to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, in particular:
- informing you of the process to be undertaken in respect of your club’s FACS Application and providing you with assistance in relation to that FACS Application;
- administering and providing support in relation to your club’s online Annual Health Check on Whole Game System, The FA’s football administration system;
- establishing methods of increasing participation and raising club standards in football, including but not limited to in relation to coaching;
- providing reward packages (including but not limited to football equipment and apparel) to FA Charter Standard accredited clubs;
- providing your club with a Charter Standard e-newsletter to communicate with you in relation to The FA and County FA initiatives, including those aimed at increasing participation and raising club standards in football; and
- ensuring that children and individuals at risk in the game are appropriately protected from harm, including safeguarding activities and checks of whether appropriate mandatory training and checks have been carried out.
- For purposes which are required by law:
- in response to requests by government or law enforcement authorities conducting an investigation.
Withdrawing consent or otherwise objecting to direct marketing
Wherever The FA or your County 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. In some cases, The FA and your County FA are able to send you direct marketing without your consent, where they rely on their legitimate interests. You have an absolute right to opt-out of direct marketing, or profiling that The FA or your County FA carries out for direct marketing, at any time. You can do this by contacting the relevant organisation using the details set out below.
How is data shared, where and when?
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 controllers for the purposes identified above. Such third parties include providers of an online management system confirming fulfilment of, and providing certificates in relation to, your club’s FACS Application.
Currently, your information is not shared outside the UK or EEA.
What rights do I have?
You have the right to ask any of the relevant data controllers 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 one of the data controllers 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 one of the data controllers doesn’t have to process the data to meet a contractual or other legal requirement, or where it is 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 have 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.
In some instances, you will need to contact more than one of the data controllers to ensure your rights are met, as they may have access to different data and have different reasons for holding the data.
To exercise any of these rights, you can get in touch with The FA – or our data protection officer – using the details set out below. As mentioned above, you can also get in touch directly with your County FA where appropriate. 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.
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.
Which County FA is my data controller?
The data controllers for your information are The FA, and any County FA you register with as your main or affiliate County. More details on this, and the relevant contact details for that entity, can be found at //www.thefa.com.
How long will The FA and County FA retain my data?
Subject to the below, The FA and County FAs will retain the personal data processed for the purposes of your club’s FACS Application for one year after your club’s first online Annual Health Check on Whole Game System, The FA’s football administration system.
The FA and County FAs may also retain personal data processed pursuant to your club’s FACS Application in order to meet safeguarding requirements. The processes around this are covered in The FA’s Safeguarding Privacy Policy
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.