Privacy Policy
Effective 3 September 2026 · Last updated 3 September 2026 · Version 1.1
MatchGenie runs tennis tournaments — a draw, the scores, and the clock everyone is watching. This policy explains what personal data it handles, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to be read, not to be got past.
1Who we are and what this covers
MatchGenie is operated by Evgeny Lavrov, an individual based in the United Kingdom, who is the data controller for the purposes of the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. MatchGenie is not a company.
The law this policy is written against is the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR), which governs what may be stored on your device.
This policy covers the MatchGenie iOS app, the Android app, and the website at matchgenie.uk (also reachable at match-genie.web.app). It does not cover the tennis clubs, leagues or venues that run tournaments on it, who decide for themselves what to enter into a draw.
2What we collect
If you are an organiser
Signing in with Google gives us your email address. That is the only personal detail we take from Google, and your Google password is never seen by MatchGenie.
If you are a player or a spectator
You type an access code. It is exchanged for an anonymous identity naming the tournaments that code unlocks. No name, no email address and no account are created for you, and we cannot tell who you are.
The tournament itself
A draw holds what a draw needs: team and player names as the organiser typed them, club names, divisions, court numbers, match scores and round times. Anyone holding that tournament's access code can see it — which is the purpose of it, and the same information that would be pinned to a noticeboard at the venue.
When a score is entered
The anonymous identity that entered it is recorded beside it, so that the app can avoid telling you about something you did yourself.
3Why we use it, and our legal basis
| Data | Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Organiser email address | Checking you are allowed to run tournaments, and recording who may edit which one | Legitimate interests — only named organisers may change a live tournament |
| Access code and the identity it creates | Limiting a tournament to the people it belongs to | Legitimate interests — keeping one club's day out of another's hands |
| Team and player names, scores, round times | Running the tournament and showing it to everyone taking part | Legitimate interests — the reason people entered |
| Who entered a score | Not notifying you of your own change | Legitimate interests — avoiding pointless interruption |
| Notification topics | Telling you a round is ending or your match is next | Consent — given by allowing notifications, withdrawn by turning them off |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether that interest is overridden by your rights, and concluded it is not: the data is what a tournament is made of, it is seen only by people holding its access code, and none of it is used to profile or advertise to anyone.
4Notifications
Most notifications — a round ending, your match coming up — are worked out on your own device from the draw and never leave it.
The rest are sent when other people do something, and reach you by topic: your device subscribes to the tournament, and to your club or team if you have one. No identifier for your device is stored by MatchGenie — the topic is the whole of the registration. Turn notifications off in your phone's settings at any time and they stop.
5What stays on your device
Some things never leave your phone: how long before a round ends you want warning, which team you have said you are, which notifications have already been shown, and the Lock Screen timer's own bookkeeping. On the website the same is true of your sign-in session and your countdown preference, held in your browser's local storage. Deleting the app, or clearing site data, removes all of it.
Storing anything on your device is governed by PECR. Everything listed above is either required to deliver the service you asked for — keeping you signed in — or is a setting you chose yourself, so it falls within the strictly necessary exception and no consent banner is shown. Nothing is stored for advertising, measurement or tracking, which is what that exception does not cover. Listing it here is the transparency PECR requires even when the exception applies.
6Who else is involved
MatchGenie does not sell personal data and does not share it for anyone else's marketing. Three processors are involved in making it work:
- Google (Firebase) — hosts the website, stores the tournaments, checks sign-ins and delivers notifications.
- Google Sign-In — for organisers only.
- Apple — if you installed through TestFlight or the App Store, and for delivering notifications to iPhones.
We may also disclose data where the law requires it.
7Where data is held
The app's server functions run in Google's London region. Tournament data is held on Google Cloud infrastructure and may be processed outside the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area, including in the United States. Where that happens, Google's standard contractual clauses and its own data-transfer safeguards apply.
8How it is protected
All traffic between the apps and the server is encrypted in transit using HTTPS. Access to a tournament is enforced on the server by security rules rather than in the app, so an access code you do not hold will not show you a tournament even if the app is modified. Organiser powers are checked server-side against a roster, not claimed by the device.
No system is perfectly secure, and we do not promise that it is.
9How long it is kept
A tournament and its scores remain until the organiser deletes them, so that past results stay available to the people who played. An organiser's email address remains while they are on the roster. Preferences on your phone last until you delete the app. Ask us to remove something sooner and we will.
10Your rights
If you are in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area you have the right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it erased, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to receive it in a portable form. Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting what came before.
Ask at the address below and we will respond within one month. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK supervisory authority, though we would rather you came to us first so we can put it right.
11Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the new version appears on this page with a new effective date. Where a change materially affects how personal data is used, we will say so in the app before it takes effect.
12Contact
Questions about privacy, requests to see or remove data, and takedown requests all go to info@matchgenie.uk.