Privacy policy

Last updated 14 October 2026.

FH Match Centre is a field hockey umpiring system: a watch app and a phone app that umpires use to time and record matches, and a website at app.fhmatchcentre.com where umpires publish results and clubs keep their teams up to date. This policy covers all of them, and the project's other sites: fhmatchcentre.com, docs.fhmatchcentre.com and status.fhmatchcentre.com.

FH Match Centre is run by KCVI Development (“we”, “us”), who is responsible for your data under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018). You can reach us at kcvi@tuta.com.

The short version

• Matches are recorded on your watch and phone, and stay there until you upload them.
• What you upload is kept on our server. A match you publish can be seen by anyone.
• Your heart rate and other workout data, and the red card reports you fill in, never reach our server.
• We don't sell your data, show adverts, use analytics or track you.

What we collect, and why

Your account

When you register: your name, email address and a password (we keep only a scrambled form of it that can't be turned back into the password), and, if you ask for one, the club you'd like to join or run. We also keep when your account was made, when you confirmed your email address, and your roles (umpire, club admin, admin).

We use these to sign you in, to email you the links to confirm your address and reset your password, to show your name on the matches you umpire, and to let an admin approve a club request. Other signed-in umpires can find you by name, so they can add you as the second umpire on a match.

Why we're allowed to: we need them to give you the account you asked for.

Matches you upload

Nothing leaves your phone until you tap Upload. An uploaded match holds what was recorded on the watch and anything you added on the phone or the website: the teams' names and colours, the score, goals, cards and the reasons for them, penalty corners and strokes, the shootout, times, the venue and competition, any notes you typed, the captains' and players' shirt numbers, and the names of the umpires. We keep every version of a match (its history), with who saved each one and when.

• A match you've uploaded but not published is a draft: only you, the other umpire on it, the admins of the clubs whose teams played, and our admins can see it.
• A match you publish is public: anyone can see it on the website and download it, and search engines may list it. Players are shown by shirt number, never by name, but people who know the teams may recognise them. You can unpublish a match at any time.
• A published match can also be sent automatically to another system: a club whose team played can have it sent to the club's own website, and we can send a league's matches to its results table. They get what anyone can see on the match's public page, and again whenever it changes. A club or league can instead have a short message posted in its own Slack, Discord or Microsoft Teams channel: the teams, the score, the competition, the day and the venue, but not the umpires' names. If you unpublish the match, or it's deleted, they're told it's gone, but what they've already received is theirs to remove.

Why we're allowed to: uploading and publishing are what you use the service for, and publishing results is in the legitimate interest of the clubs, players and umpires who follow them.

Club umpiring

Only if a club uses the site to organise its umpires, and adds you to its list:

• The club's umpire list holds your name and email address, which the club's admins can see, and the qualification level and team you play for that they record, so they can choose suitable umpires.
• Appointments: the fixtures a club asks you to umpire, and your answers (accepted, declined, or asking for cover). The club's admins and the other umpire on a fixture see them. If you ask for cover, the club's other umpires see that fixture so one can take it over. We email you when you're asked, and when a fixture you're on changes or is cancelled.
• Availability you choose to give: days you're free or not, the hours, and weekdays you're never free. A club's admins see only whether you're free for each of their fixtures.
• Your calendar address: a private link to a calendar of your accepted appointments. Anyone you give it to can see them; you can replace it at any time.

You can leave a club's list yourself, unmark your availability, or ask a club's admins to take you off.

Why we're allowed to: it's in the legitimate interest of the clubs you umpire for, and yours, to arrange who umpires which match, and it's only used for that.

Notifications

If you turn on notifications in the phone app, the reminders to upload a match and about the next day's appointments are made on your phone. Your phone also gets a push token from Apple or Google (through Expo, the service the app is built with), which we store with your account so we could send you a message about your matches later. We don't send any yet. Turning notifications off in the app's Settings, or signing out, removes the token.

Asking to join the test

The form on fhmatchcentre.com asks for your name, email address, the watch and phone you'd use, and anything you'd like to add. We use them to decide on your request and to email you the answer, with the invitation if it's approved.

Security and running the service

Our server records each request it receives, with the IP address it came from and the time, to keep the service working and secure: for example, to limit repeated sign-in attempts, which we count per IP address and email address. We also keep a log of changes made through the service (who changed which match, club or account, and when), so mistakes and misuse can be traced. The server deletes its request logs after 30 days.

Why we're allowed to: it's in our legitimate interest, and yours, to keep the service and your account secure.

On the website

The website sets cookies only to keep you signed in. There are no advertising or analytics cookies. The light or dark theme you choose is remembered in your browser and never sent to us.

What stays on your devices

These are stored on your watch and phone only. We never receive them unless you send them to us yourself:

• Your workout, if you turn on Record workout on the watch: your heart rate, steps, distance and calories during each match. It's kept with the match on your phone, but it's never part of a match you upload or share. If you choose, the app saves it to Health Connect (Android) or Apple Health (Apple Watch), where other fitness apps you allow can read it. The app only writes to them; it never reads anything from them.
• Red card reports you fill in: your name, qualification and contact details, your colleague's name, and the offender's name, age group, club and team, with your account of what happened. They're for you to copy into England Hockey's form or share yourself; what happens then is covered by England Hockey's own policy.
• Upcoming matches you set up ahead of time, and matches you haven't uploaded.
• Backups and exports you make. They go wherever you save or share them.

Who else handles your data

We use a small number of services to run FH Match Centre. Each only gets what it needs to do its job:

Our server and its database are in the United Kingdom. Some of these services are based in, or may handle data in, the United States and elsewhere; where they do, they protect it with the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK's data bridge with the US or the standard contract clauses.

We don't sell your data or share it with anyone else, apart from sending published matches to clubs' and leagues' systems as described above, unless the law requires us to.

How long we keep it

• Your account: until it's deleted (below).
• Matches: until they're deleted. A match an admin deletes is kept for 30 days in case of mistakes, then removed for good.
• Requests to join the test and club requests: 12 months after we answer them. Requests still waiting for an answer are kept until we do.
• Club umpiring: a club's fixtures, and the appointments to them, until the club's admins delete them or the club is deleted. Your place on a club's list until you or its admins take you off. Your availability and calendar address until you remove them or your account is deleted.
• Matches sent to clubs' and leagues' systems: our record of each sending, 30 days.
• Sign-in sessions: up to 30 days. Email links expire after 24 hours (confirming your email address) or 1 hour (resetting your password).
• Backups: we back up the database regularly and keep each backup for 14 days. Something deleted from the service disappears from the backups as they're replaced.

Deleting your account

Ask for it from your account page on the website (Delete account), or email us. An admin then deletes your account, your sign-in sessions, any push tokens, your club requests, your place on clubs' umpire lists, your appointments, your availability and your calendar address. The matches you uploaded stay on the service, because they're also the other umpire's and the clubs' record of the match, but your name on them is replaced with “Deleted user”. If you'd also like particular matches removed, tell us.

Our log of changes keeps a note that the account was deleted, with its email address, so we can show it was done.

Your rights

You have the right to see the personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to have a copy of what you gave us in a form you can reuse. You can correct your name on your account page, and download your matches from the website at any time. For anything else, email kcvi@tuta.com; we'll answer within a month.

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113).

Children

FH Match Centre is for match officials aged 18 and over. Players appear in matches by shirt number only.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top, and for a significant change we'll tell you in the app or by email.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: kcvi@tuta.com.