Privacy

Matchpoint is an independent, unofficial site for pool and billiards in the Maldives: tournament results, draws and schedules, player profiles, friendly challenges and mini tournaments. It is run by Lifecode (sole proprietorship, Registration No. SP02532023), trading as Matchpoint. This page explains, in plain words, what we keep, why, who helps us, and what you can ask us to do. It goes with our Terms of Use.

What we show publicly

• Players’ names, as they appear in tournament draws or as players give them when they create a profile, and nicknames.
• Results, scores, draws and schedules, re-entered by us from the organisers’ published charts and results.
• A player’s club and island, if known, and their record, titles and finishes worked out from those results.
• The community rating and tier, worked out from organised tournaments only. Players can ask for theirs to be hidden.
• A player’s public @username, if they choose one. People can search for it.
• Confirmed friendly challenge results and mini tournament places, shown on profiles as Friendly.
• Photos (up to 12 per player, one of them the profile photo), only if the player uploads them or gives permission, and share cards made from public information.

What we never show

• Mobile numbers, email addresses, contact details and dates of birth. These are never shown on the site.

What we store, and why

• Tournament data (names, results, schedules) so the site can show live results, records and the community rating.
• Your account: your mobile number, used to send your sign-in codes and the texts below, and to link your account to your player profile. Your name, your @username if you choose one, and, if you add a password, only a scrambled version of it (a hash), never the password itself. You stay signed in on a device for up to 90 days.
• Profile claims: when you tap “This is me”, which profile you asked for and whether an admin approved it.
• Details entered by admins: for some players, a contact number or date of birth, kept private. A date of birth is used only to protect players under 18. Contact numbers entered by admins are never texted by the site.
• Photos you upload, stored with Vercel Blob. Before upload, your own browser makes the photo smaller, which also removes hidden details such as location and phone model. To keep the face in view when a photo is cropped, your browser finds where the face is; the photo isn’t sent anywhere for this, only that point is kept, and it never identifies who the person is.
• Challenges and mini tournaments: who challenged whom, suggested times, venues, scores, who entered and confirmed them, who joined or was added to a mini tournament, and notices about them. Also blocks and reports, so admins can keep the site safe.
• Texts we send: a record of each match text (which match, which player, which number, and whether it went), so nobody gets the same text twice.
• Security records: a log of changes made by admins, organisers, scorers and players (with the internet address they came from), so decisions can be checked and reversed, and records of sign-in attempts to stop abuse.
• Highlights: short photos and clips from tournaments, added by organisers and scorers and stored with Vercel Blob. If you’re in one and would like it taken down, send us a WhatsApp message and it’s removed, files included. Which highlights you’ve already watched is kept only on your phone.
• Visit counts: totals only, such as how many people opened a page each day, which sites sent them (for example WhatsApp or Facebook), and their type of device and country. This uses Vercel Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and can’t tell who visited. We don’t use advertising trackers.
• “Who will win?” votes and match reactions: your pick or reaction and a random number saved on your phone (in a cookie and the browser’s storage), so each phone votes once per match and reacts once with each icon. It isn’t linked to your name or number. To stop spam we also keep a scrambled version of your internet address that changes every day and can’t be turned back into the address. Only the totals are shown.

Texts we send

We only text the number you signed in with. We send:

• your sign-in codes, when you ask for one;
• a text when another player challenges you (at most 3 a day);
• match texts for tournaments: when your next match is decided (not between 23:00 and 08:00) and about 1½ hours before it starts. These go only to players who signed in and whose profile is linked to their account. You can switch them off on your account page, or ask us to.

We never send advertising texts.

Who helps us run Matchpoint

We don’t sell personal information, and we don’t share it with sponsors or advertisers. We only pass it to these service providers, so they can do their part of running the site for us:

• Vercel: hosts the site, stores photos and highlights (Vercel Blob) and counts visits. The site runs on servers in Singapore.
• Neon: our database, in Singapore.
• MsgOwl, a Maldivian SMS service: sends sign-in codes and the texts above to your number.
• Cloudflare Turnstile: the “not a robot” check on sign-in forms.
• Have I Been Pwned: when you add a password, only the first five characters of its scrambled version are sent, to check it hasn’t appeared in a known data leak. Your password itself is never sent.
• YouTube shows tournament live streams, and WhatsApp is how you can contact us. When you use them, their own privacy policies apply.

How long we keep things

• Failed admin and password sign-ins: one day. Requests for sign-in codes: 60 days.
• Your account, profile details, photos and text records: until you delete them or ask us to close your account.
• Highlights: until they’re taken down.
• The log of changes: kept so decisions can be checked later.
• Tournament results: kept as part of the tournament record, because they’re public sporting facts.

When we close an account, we delete or anonymise its details. Results of matches played in organised tournaments stay in the record, shown with the player’s name only.

Who can see what

• Everyone: the public information above.
• Organisers and scorers: the tournaments they help run, so they can enter results.
• Mini tournament hosts: the players in their tournament, with the same public details everyone sees.
• Site admins: account and profile details, including numbers, to check claims, manage roles and keep the site safe.

Your choices

You can:

• add a nickname on your account page, and choose whether the site shows you by your name or your nickname;
• add, change or delete your photos on your account page;
• switch match texts off on your account page;
• block players so they can’t challenge or invite you.

Anyone can ask us to:

• send a copy of the personal information we hold about them,
• fix a wrong name, result or detail,
• hide a player profile or some of its details, such as the photo (the name still appears in past results),
• hide their community rating,
• remove a photo or personal details,
• close their account and delete the information linked to it.

Every player page has a “Request a correction or removal” link. You can also send a WhatsApp message to +960 964 3766 or email matchpointmaldives@gmail.com. We’ll reply and act on reasonable requests as soon as we can.

Results stay part of the tournament record, because they’re public sporting facts, but we’ll always fix mistakes.

Players under 18

Players under 18 may only create an account with a parent’s or guardian’s permission. They can’t send or receive challenges or join mini tournaments, and we show fewer details for them. We don’t show photos of players under 18 unless a parent or guardian agrees. Parents or guardians can ask for changes using the contacts above.

Changes to this page

We update this page whenever what we store, send or use changes, and change the date at the top. For important changes we’ll give notice on the site first.

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