The short version.
- We collect what the app needs to work: your account, your profile, what you post, and the games you join or host.
- We don't sell your information, and we don't use it for advertising.
- Your email, phone number and date of birth are never shown to other users.
- Your contacts' phone numbers are scrambled on your phone before anything is sent to us.
- You can delete your account at any time in Profile → Settings → Delete account.
1. Who we are
Ringers is run by Ringers Sport Limited, a company registered in Ireland. We are responsible for your personal information (the "data controller"). Our Australian subsidiary, RINGERS SPORT (AUS) PTY. LTD., collects payments for games in Australia and keeps payment records for us.
Ringers Sport Limited · Company number 825105 · Venture Hub, 136 Capel Street, Dublin, D01 T2C9, Ireland
RINGERS SPORT (AUS) PTY. LTD. · ACN 702 542 498 · New South Wales, Australia
This policy covers the Ringers mobile app. Section 11 covers our website. Questions go to support@ringerssport.com.
2. What we collect
When you sign up
- With email: your email address and a password. The password is stored scrambled, so we can never read it.
- With Google: your email address and the name on your Google account.
- With Apple: your email address (or an Apple private relay address, if you choose to hide yours) and, the first time only, your name. We also keep a token from Apple, so we can disconnect Ringers from your Apple ID when you delete your account.
- Your date of birth, to check you are 16 or over.
Your profile
- Username, full name, profile photo and bio.
- Your town or city, chosen from a list. We don't store your exact address or coordinates on your profile.
- Your gender, if you add it. Some games are open to one gender only.
- The sports you play, and your level in them.
- Your phone number, if you choose to add it. Only you can see it. People who already have your number saved can use it to find you on Ringers (see Section 3). Removing it stops that.
What you do in the app
- Games you host or join, squads and leagues you belong to, and who you follow.
- Posts, photos, comments, likes, chat messages, reviews, match reports, and reports you make.
- Activity logs you choose to enter, such as distance, time, steps or elevation for a run, walk, hike or ride. We don't connect to fitness trackers or health apps.
- Book club details, such as books you add and your votes.
- Your reliability rating and attendance record, worked out from what hosts and players record after games.
- Messages you send us through Contact us, and any payment problem you report.
From your phone, only with your permission
- Location. Only while you're using the app, to show games near you and help you search for places. We use it for that request and don't store it. We never track your location in the background.
- Camera. Only when you choose to take a photo in the app, including with RingerCam.
- Photos. Only the photos you pick to upload.
- Notifications. A notification token, so we can send you push notifications.
- Contacts. Only if you tap "Find my contacts". See Section 3.
Payments
- Your card details go straight to Stripe. We never see or store them.
- We keep a record of each payment: the amount, the fees, what it was for, its status, and Stripe's reference for it.
- If you receive payments, Stripe collects your identity and bank details on its own pages. We only keep a reference to your Stripe account, its country, whether it can take payments, and Stripe's list of anything it still needs from you.
How the app is working
- Usage analytics (PostHog): which features are used, such as "joined a game" or "created a squad". These are linked to your account number, never your name or email. We don't record what you type, and we don't record every tap.
- Crash reports (Sentry): what went wrong, and your device model and system version, linked to your account number only.
- Both tools also see basic technical details, such as the app version, the type of device, and your rough region from your internet connection.
3. Finding friends from your contacts
If you tap "Find my contacts", the app reads the phone numbers in your contacts. On your phone, each number is turned into a scrambled code (a "hash"). Only those codes are sent to us. Names, and the numbers themselves, never leave your phone.
We compare the codes with codes made from the phone numbers people have added to their own Ringers profiles, and show you who matched. We don't store your contacts' codes. We limit how many lookups an account can make.
A scrambled phone number can sometimes be worked back to the real number, so we treat these codes as personal information too.
4. How we use your information, and why we're allowed to
European and UK law asks us to say which legal reason we rely on for each use. We apply the same standards to everyone.
| What we use it for | Legal reason |
|---|---|
| Running your account and the app: games, squads, leagues, chat, profiles, payments and support | To provide the service you signed up for (our contract with you) |
| Keeping people safe: handling reports and blocks, stopping fraud and abuse, enforcing our Terms | Our legitimate interest in a safe community |
| Reliability ratings, so people can decide who to play with | Our legitimate interest, and other players' |
| Usage analytics and crash reports, to fix problems and improve the app | Our legitimate interest in a working app |
| Location, contacts, camera, photos and push notifications | Your permission, which you can withdraw in your phone's settings at any time |
| Keeping payment and tax records | Legal obligations |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object (Section 9). We don't sell your information, we don't use it for advertising, and we don't send marketing emails from the app.
If someone repeatedly fails to turn up to games, we may restrict their account. A person on our team always reviews this first. Nothing about your account is restricted by a computer alone.
5. What other people can see
- Your profile is visible to other signed-in Ringers users: name, username, photo, bio, age, town or city, reliability rating, follower counts, how many games you've hosted and joined, and when you joined.
- A private account (Settings → Privacy) means only your followers and squad-mates can see your sports and level, career stats, game history list, playing streak and follower lists. Anyone signed in can still find your profile and see the details above. That includes when you joined, and how many games you've joined and hosted, in total and in each sport.
- Games. People who can see a game can see who is going, and who has asked to join.
- Chat messages are seen only by the people in that chat. Our team only looks at a message if someone reports it. If someone reports a message, we keep a copy of it for our team.
- Posts. There is no setting for who sees a single post. Posts from a public account can be seen by every signed-in user. Posts from a private account can be seen by your followers.
- Reliability reviews. Any signed-in user can open anyone's Reliability screen. It shows each check-in: the reviewer's name and photo, whether the person turned up, and any comment. Blocking someone, or having a private account, doesn't hide these.
- Squads and leagues. Squad members see the squad's chat, games and costs. In a league, the other squads see fixtures, results, the table and player stats. A private player's name is hidden on league stat boards from people who can't see their profile.
- Blocking someone stops them interacting with you. It hides your games, follows and activity from them, and hides you from each other's contact matches. Your basic profile details may still be visible to them. You may still both appear in a game, squad, league or group chat you share.
- Never shown to other users: your email address, phone number, date of birth, exact location, payment details and private calendar link.
6. Who we share it with
We share information with these companies, only so they can provide their service to us:
| Company | What they do | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and file storage | Everything the app stores |
| Stripe | Payments | Card and payment details, your account number, and payout details for people who receive money |
| Google sign-in, maps, place search and book search | Sign-in details if you use Google; the place or book you search for, and your rough location to improve place results | |
| Apple | Apple sign-in | Sign-in details if you use Apple |
| Expo, Apple and Google | Delivering push notifications | Your notification token and the notification's text. For a chat message, that includes the start of the message |
| PostHog | Usage analytics | Your account number and the features you use |
| Sentry | Crash reports | Your account number and crash details |
| Resend | Sending email | Your email address and the email itself (codes and account notices). Reports and Contact us messages reach our team through it |
| Giphy | GIF search in chat | The words you search for. Your phone also loads each GIF directly from Giphy's image servers |
| Open Library | Book cover images | Your phone loads book covers directly from them |
| Sharing a RingerCam photo | If you share a RingerCam photo, it is handed to the Instagram app on your phone |
If you choose to share a game to Instagram, or add one to your calendar, the details you share go to that app.
We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or if Ringers is taken over by another company that agrees to follow this policy.
7. Where your information is stored
Ringers' database is in Sydney, Australia. Analytics and crash reports are stored in the EU (PostHog and Sentry). Some of the companies above, including Stripe, Google, Apple, Expo, Resend, Giphy, Open Library and Netlify, may handle information in the United States and other countries.
If you are in the EU or UK, this means your information is transferred to countries outside it, including Australia.
8. How long we keep it
- Your account and profile: until you delete your account. We don't delete inactive accounts automatically.
- Sign-ups with nothing entered: if you start signing up but never enter anything at all (no name, no date of birth, nothing else), the account is deleted after 30 days.
- Payment records: as long as tax and accounting law requires, usually seven years, even after you delete your account.
- Analytics and crash reports: for a limited period, then deleted automatically.
- Backups: deleted information can stay in our database backups for up to about a week, until they are replaced.
When you delete your account
Your account, profile, profile photo, post photos, posts, reviews (written by you or about you), follows and notification tokens are deleted. If you signed in with Apple, we ask Apple to disconnect Ringers from your Apple ID.
A public game you were hosting is deleted, with everything attached to it. That includes other players' attendance records, their reliability reviews on that game, its results, match reports and chat. Squad games are handed to the squad's owner. In any game that isn't deleted, tennis, padel and pickleball results keep your name, so the other players' records still make sense.
A few shared records stay, because they belong to other people too:
- Chat messages you sent stay in the chat, shown as from "Deleted user".
- Photos you sent in chats, or attached to match reports, stay.
- Match reports you filed stay, without your name.
- Squad games you created stay with the squad, hosted by its owner, and still show your name as the person who created them. Squads you owned pass to another member.
- Payment records stay for tax purposes, no longer linked to your account. A squad's record of costs keeps the name you were listed under, and your name stays on costs you collected as captain.
- Reports other people made about you stay, with a copy of what was reported, so our team can deal with them.
- Messages you sent us through Contact us keep your name and email address.
Apart from payment records, here is how long these stay. A report stays until our team has dealt with it, then for 12 months more. If the person a report is about is suspended or banned, we keep it while that lasts and for 12 months after it ends. Messages you sent us through Contact us are deleted 12 months after you sent them, unless we're still dealing with them.
9. Your rights
Most of your information can be seen, changed or deleted in the app. For anything else, email support@ringerssport.com. We'll reply within one month.
- Everyone can ask for a copy of their information, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it.
- In Australia, you have rights under the Australian Privacy Principles. If you're not happy with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).
- In the EU or UK, you can also ask us to restrict or stop using your information, object to uses based on our legitimate interests, and receive your information in a portable format. You can complain to your local data protection authority. Our lead authority is the Irish Data Protection Commission.
10. Children
Ringers is for people aged 16 and over. We ask for a date of birth at sign-up, and nobody under 16 can finish signing up. If you believe someone under 16 is using Ringers, email us and we'll close the account.
11. Cookies and our website
The Ringers app doesn't use cookies.
Our website, ringerssport.com, uses Google Analytics to see how visitors use the site, such as which pages they visit. Google Analytics sets cookies in your browser. It isn't connected to your Ringers account or to anything you do in the app. These legal pages don't use it. You can block these cookies in your browser settings, or with Google's opt-out browser add-on.
Our website is hosted by Netlify. If you sign up for early access on the website, Netlify stores your email address for us. We keep it only to tell you when Ringers is available near you.
12. Security
We protect your information with encryption while it travels and while it is stored, and with access controls. Only a small number of people on our team can access it, and only when they need to. No system is perfectly secure. If something happens that puts your information at risk, we'll tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
13. Changes to this policy
If we make an important change, we'll update the date at the top, and tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.
14. Contact us
Email support@ringerssport.com, or use Profile → Settings → Contact us in the app.