Children first. Academy coaches second.
This platform holds video and information about children, and shows it to adults who want to recruit them. That is a serious responsibility and we have built the product around it rather than writing a policy afterwards. Everything below is enforced in the software, not just promised on this page.
Last updated 18 July 2026 · reviewed annually · next review July 2027Nothing about a child is public
There is no public profile, no shareable link, no browsing without an account, and no search engine indexing anywhere on this platform. A child can only ever be seen inside an authenticated, verified, logged session. There is no "featured players" wall and there never will be.
Only verified, checked adults get access
Access to under-18 profiles requires a named individual, never a shared club login. We verify their identity, and we confirm their academy-coach role directly with the club or county rather than taking their word for it. Where they hold a safeguarding check for a role that qualifies for one, such as coaching, we record it and its expiry. We are straight about the limits here: a purely desk-based talent-identification role is not, in law, eligible for a DBS check, so we do not claim to have run one. What we verify is who someone is and that the organisation they name vouches for them. Verification is re-checked every year.
No adult ever contacts a child directly
There are no contact details on any child's profile. County interest comes to us and then to the parent. The parent approves before a conversation exists and stays in that conversation. A county coach cannot message a child or obtain a way to reach them off the platform.
Who holds the account
A child does not hold an account here. A parent or guardian does.
| Age | Who controls it | Can the child log in? |
|---|---|---|
| Under 18 | Parent or guardian holds the account, pays and decides visibility | Supervised login: view their profile and suggest an upload for approval. No messaging and no contact |
| 18 and over | The player | Yes, full control. The account transfers to them automatically at 18 |
A player under 18 with a supervised login is told plainly, on their own screen, that a parent controls the account and can see everything on it. We will not build hidden monitoring of young people. If a young person is being supervised, they get to know about it.
What county talent staff can see, and what they cannot
A verified county academy coach, looking at a profile a parent has made discoverable, sees the cricket and nothing that could be used to contact the child directly.
| Visible | Never visible |
|---|---|
| First name and surname initial (full name from 16, or earlier only with explicit parental consent) | Address, postcode or any location finer than county or region |
| Age group, birth quarter and full date of birth | Home address or precise location |
| Club, teams and standard played | School name, for anyone under 16 |
| Role, batting hand, bowling type | Any email address or phone number, of the child or the parent |
| Height and growth stage | Weight or body composition. We do not collect it for under-18s |
| Matches, runs, wickets, verified appearances | Siblings or any family link |
| Video clips the parent has uploaded | Other children's faces in those clips, which we prompt to blur |
The visibility dial
Every profile starts private. Discovery is a decision a parent makes deliberately, and it is reversible in one tap. Nothing escalates on its own, ever, no matter how good the child gets.
- Private. Visible to the parent and the supervised child login only. The default on the day a profile is created.
- Friends and family. Invite-only progress table showing a first name and surname initial, Vault points and a recent record-update label. For under-18s, the parent approves every invitation and can remove access at any time. Friends and family never see profile details, footage, contact details or county activity.
- Discoverable. Verified county academy coaches can find the profile in search. Requires explicit parental opt-in and is re-confirmed every twelve months.
Video
Footage of a child is the most sensitive thing we hold, so it is handled differently from everything else.
- Streamed only. Clips cannot be downloaded from the platform.
- Served over short-lived signed links, so a copied URL stops working.
- Watermarked with the identity of the person viewing, so a leaked clip is traceable back to the account that leaked it.
- Uploads are checked, and parents are prompted to blur other children who appear in the background.
- Clips drop out of search after 24 months unless refreshed, which keeps the footage current and limits how much old video of children sits on the platform.
We follow NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit guidance on photographing and filming children in sport, and the ECB's requirements on imagery of young cricketers.
Standards we hold ourselves to
ICO Children's Code
The Age Appropriate Design Code. High privacy by default, data minimisation, no nudge techniques, transparency written for the age of the reader, and a data protection impact assessment completed before launch.
UK GDPR and DPA 2018
Parental consent as the basis for processing under-13 data, the child's right to erasure honoured in full, and the account transferred to the young person when they turn 18.
ECB Safe Hands
The England and Wales Cricket Board's safeguarding framework. Clubs on this platform are expected to be operating within it, and we ask for their welfare officer's details as part of verification.
NSPCC CPSU
Child Protection in Sport Unit guidance, particularly on filming, imagery and the conduct expected of adults working with young athletes.
What we ask of county academy coaches
- Verify as yourself, not as a committee. Shared logins are a breach of these terms and will end your access.
- Keep your club or county affiliation and any safeguarding checks current. Access suspends automatically when verification lapses.
- Only look at profiles you have a genuine recruitment reason to look at. We monitor viewing patterns and we do ask questions.
- Never attempt to reach a young player outside the platform before a parent has approved contact.
- Respond to what you start. If you request contact, follow through or withdraw it.
How we handle a concern
Every profile, message and clip carries a report control. A report goes to a named safeguarding lead, not a general inbox and not a ticket queue. High-severity reports are looked at the same day.
Where a concern involves a club, we notify that club's welfare officer and, where appropriate, the county safeguarding officer and the ECB. Where a concern suggests a child may be at risk, we will contact the local authority designated officer and the police. We will not sit on something because it is commercially awkward.
We suspend first and investigate second. An account under investigation loses access to children's profiles immediately.
Your rights over your child's data
- See everything we hold, on request or by downloading it yourself at any time.
- Correct anything that is wrong.
- Delete the profile entirely. Deletion means deletion, including footage, not a hidden flag on a record we keep.
- Withdraw discovery at any moment without deleting the record.
- Take the whole record with you if you leave. Your data is not our hostage.
Report a concern
If anything on this platform worries you, tell us. Use the report control on any profile, message or clip, or write directly to our safeguarding lead. You do not need to be certain, and you will not be treated as a nuisance.
If a child is at immediate risk, call 999 first, then tell us.
safeguarding@theplayervault.co.uk