Ghana Football App - Privacy Policy

In this Privacy Policy, terms such as "we", "us, "our" or similar expressions shall mean the owners of the Ghana Football App.

We take your privacy very seriously and are committed to protecting your personal data (meaning any information about you from which you can be identified). This Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect when you: access the Ghana Football APP website at https://www.ghanafootballapp.com(or from the Google Play Store) (the Services); engage with the Ghana Football App (or we engage with your content) on social media platforms (including our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram pages); and/or when you otherwise interact or communicate with us. It also explains how we may use this data, and what rights you have in relation to such data.

If you are aged 12 or under (a child), or you are reading this on behalf of a child for whom you have parental responsibility, please refer to 10. CHILDREN AND PRIVACY.

We keep our privacy practices under review and may change this Privacy Policy from time to time by posting changes on the Services or otherwise notifying them to you. This version of the Policy is dated March 2021.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully:

  1. BACKGROUND

  2. PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU

  3. HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA

  4. HOW AND WHY WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

  5. DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

  6. SECURITY OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

  7. LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

  8. DATA RETENTION

  9. YOUR RIGHTS

  10. CHILDREN AND PRIVACY

  11. CONTACT US

1. Background

We are a governed by the Ghana Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) which seeks to protect the privacy of the individual and personal data by regulating the processing of personal information. This means we are responsible for deciding how we use the personal data that we collect about you and, in accordance with the Data Protection Law, we will ensure that the personal data we hold about you is, at all times:


  1. used fairly, lawfully, and transparently;

  2. collected for limited, specific purposes only;

  3. adequate, relevant to and limited to what is necessary for those purposes;

  4. kept accurate and up-to-date;

  5. not kept for longer than is necessary; and

  6. held securely.

We shall be accountable for and able to demonstrate our compliance with our obligations under the Data Protection Law, and this Privacy Policy is one of the ways in which we do that.

We have appointed a Data Protection Lead to oversee compliance with this Privacy Policy and our data protection compliance activities.

2. Personal Data We Collect About You

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. We may collect, store, transfer and use various types of your personal data:

Not all of the list above will necessarily apply to you - it depends on your use of the Services and your particular interaction and communications with us. Please refer to 4. HOW AND WHY WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA below.

There are also “special categories” of more sensitive data about you such as details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientations, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data (“Special Category Data”) and personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences (“Criminal Offence Data”) which require a higher level of protection (collectively referred to in this Policy as “Sensitive Personal Data”). We do not regularly collect, use or store such Sensitive Personal Data but in some circumstances we may need to do so. Please refer to 4. HOW AND WHY WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA below, and any other privacy notices which we may provide to you carefully, so that you are aware of and understand the ways in which we collect and use your Sensitive Personal Data.

3. How We Collect Your Personal Data

You provide us with your personal data when you:

In connection with some elements of the Services we also receive additional personal data about you from other organisations who have collected personal data from you, such as our member football clubs from time to time (Clubs), and data collected on our behalf at Ghana Football App events. We may also receive personal data as part of the legal processes we undertake to protect our Services and our intellectual property, such as our brand or media rights, or those of our licensees/commercial partners.

We collect the Technical Data automatically as you interact with our Services by using cookies and other similar web technologies.

We also use third party tools to help us manage and analyse our social media presence, and report on comments, mentions and other content that is posted about us on social media platforms and other public channels and forums. These third parties’ activities, and their information collection and sharing practices, are subject to the terms of the relevant social media platform, channel or forum. We will use this information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to certain parts of the Services. This information is only used by us in a way which does not identify you. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of anyone visiting our website.

4. How and Why We Use Your Personal Data

We will only use your personal data where Data Protection Law allows us to. Data Protection Law says we can collect and use personal data on the following bases:

  1. it is necessary for us to be able to perform an agreement with you.

  2. it is necessary for our legitimate interests (and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests);

  3. if we have your consent (which you can withdraw at any time); or

  4. to comply with a legal obligatione. rules laid down by courts, statute or regulation.

Data Protection Law says we can only collect and use your Sensitive Personal Data where an additional basis applies: for reasons of substantial public interest, including when preventing or detecting unlawful acts or in connection with our regulatory and oversight functions in sport; in connection with legal claims; cases where you have made the data public yourself; or where you have given explicit consent.

Accordingly, we lawfully use your personal data in the following ways:

Delivering the Services:We use the Registration Data, User Data and Contact Data so that we can deliver the Services to you in an effective, efficient and accurate way. Without it, we would not be able to deliver a tailored service to you or respond to issues with these Services that are identified by us or you, or ensure you get the most out of your experience. Therefore, we use this data on the basis that it is necessary for us to be able to perform our agreement with you (i.e. the terms and conditions of the relevant Services) and for our legitimate interests of delivering the Services in this way.

Operating the Services:We use the Technical Data in order to operate and administer the Services including as necessary for testing, analysis, maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data. Therefore, we use this data on the basis that it is necessary for our legitimate interests of operating the Services in this way. We also use Technical Data together with certain Identity Data and Contact Data to assist in security and fraud prevention, system integrity (such as preventing hacking, cheats and spam) and/or to facilitate our response to a legal process. Therefore, we use this data on the basis that it is necessary both for our legitimate interests in protecting the Services in this way and in order that we can comply with a legal obligation.

Competitions and promotions:We use Identity Data and Contact Data and any other personal data related to the entry (for example, a photograph) in order that we can administer and operate contests, prize draws, competitions or other promotions including selecting the winners, delivering the prizes and publishing the results (as required by GHANA advertising regulations). Therefore, we use this data on the basis that it is necessary for us to be able to perform our agreement with you (i.e. the terms and conditions of the relevant promotion) and in order that we can comply with a legal obligation. If we want to use the personal data for any other purpose we will notify you and, if necessary, seek your consent at that time.

Marketing communications:We use the Identity Data and Contact Data to inform you of news, offers, events, competitions and promotions by specified media (including, if requested, by way of calendar notifications) which may be of interest to you and/ or we provide such data to our Clubs and/or our official commercial partners so that they can do this. We give you the option of providing opt-in consent to receive different kinds of direct marketing communications from us or these third parties or deciding not to do so.

OPT-ING OUT: You can withdraw your consent and opt-out of marketing communications from us at any time by updating your Email Preferences (where you have signed up to our website) or by following the instructions provided to you in the relevant communication (for example, the 'unsubscribe' link in an email). Alternatively, you may contact us at info@ghanafootballapp.com. We may still need to send service emails to you from time to time.

If you have chosen to receive communications directly from a particular Club or commercial partner, you will be consenting to us passing the data to them to use in accordance with their privacy policy, to which we provide links on our website, so you should contact them directly if you no longer wish to receive their communications.

Media coverage: We use the Media Data together with Identity and Contact Data for Ghana Football App-related publishing and media coverage. Except where you are not the subject of the Media Data, for example in general crowd shots, we will seek your consent and provide you with information about our intended use of such information.

Other purposes: We might have to use your personal data to protect your or someone else's vital interests for example to make contact in rare emergency situations. We could also have to use your personal data in connection with legal and regulatory matters such as our maintenance of business records, compliance with external reporting requirements and internal policies and procedures and responses to requests by government, law enforcement, regulators, courts, rights holders or other third parties including in respect of the use or misuse of intellectual property, such as our brand or media rights, or those of our licensees/commercial partners or their parties. Therefore we use this data on the basis that it is necessary both for our legitimate interests in protecting, defending and enforcing rights and interests in this way and also so that we can comply with legal obligations. We may also use your personal data when we process Media Data as part of our dedicated reporting and take-down programme helping to fight serious abuse against players, coaching staff and their families in social media. We use this data for our legitimate interests in fighting abuse and, where Sensitive Personal Data is involved, in order to prevent or detect unlawful acts, in connection with legal claims and where you have made the data public yourself.

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it as described above, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

What if you do not want to share your personal data?

Unless otherwise specified above, generally we collect your personal data on a voluntary basis. However, please note that if you decline to provide certain mandatory personal data, you may not be able to access certain Services and we may be unable to fully respond to any inquiries you make.

5. Disclosure of Your Personal Data

We may disclose or share your personal data in the following circumstances:

Please read carefully any additional privacy notices which we may provide to you so that you are aware of and understand any other circumstances in which we may disclose or share your personal data which are specific to your use of the Services and/or your relationship with the Ghana Football App.

Notwithstanding anything else in this Privacy Policy, we may share aggregate or de-identified information with third parties for research, marketing, analytics and other purposes, provided such information does not identify a particular individual and the individual cannot be re-identified.

6. Security of Your Personal Data

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed (a Data Security Breach). In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only use your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected Data Security Breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator where we are legally required to do so.

Where we have given you or you have chosen a password which enables you to access certain Services, you are responsible for using reasonable care in keeping this password confidential.

7. Links to Other Sites

The Services may contain links to other websites, applications and environments that are not owned or controlled by us (the Other Sites). The owners and operators of those Other Sites are responsible for their collection and/or use of your personal data and you should check their respective privacy policies. Unless specifically referred to otherwise, this Privacy Policy applies to the Services only and not the Other Sites.

8. Data Retention

We will only keep your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for (see 4. WHY WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA), including for the purposes of satisfying any accounting, reporting or other legal requirements, in accordance with our internal Data Retention Policy.

To determine the appropriate retention period, we review - in addition to the purposes of use and how we can achieve them - other relevant factors such as the nature and scope of the personal data, the potential risks to data subjects from a Data Security Breach, and the applicable legal requirements, for example the limitation period for which legal claims can be made in court.

For example, all non-activated Ghana Football App accounts are deleted after 45 days and all non-authorised child accounts are deleted immediately if a parent withholds consent and after 21 days if a child’s account is not verified.

9. Your Rights

Under Data Protection Law, you have certain rights (depending on the circumstances) in connection with your personal data, which include:

We are committed to respecting your rights. You may action your rights (as may be applicable) by contacting us using the details provided below (11. CONTACT US) and we will comply with your requests within a reasonable period unless we have a lawful reason not to do so. Requests should be made in writing and to ensure that personal data is dealt with carefully and confidentially we will require the requestor to provide verification of their identity and all applications must be accompanied by copies of at least two official documents, which show your name, date of birth and current address (for example, driving licence, birth/ adoption certificate, passport, recent utility bill).

In responding to such requests, we will explain the impact of any objections, restrictions or deletions requested.

We will not charge you a fee to exercise your rights unless your request is clearly unfounded or excessive, in which case we may charge you a reasonable fee. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

Additionally, should you wish to permanently delete your ghanafootballapp.com account and your personal data, you may do this yourself by following the below instructions:

Please note that if you log back in to your account during the 21 day period the account will be reactivated.

You also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Data Protection Commission (DPO), the Ghana data protection authority. The DPO's contact details as are follows: East Legon, Paw Paw Street, GPS: GA-414-1469, P.O.Box CT7195, Accra

+233-(0)30 2222 929

info@dataprotection.org.gh

+233-(0)30 2222 927 +233-(0)506177975

10. Children and Privacy

It is important to us that children can enjoy our Services in a responsible manner. We encourage parents and guardians to supervise their children's online activities by, for example, adopting control tools available from online services and software suppliers that help provide a child-friendly online environment including by preventing children from disclosing their personal data online without parental permission.

We are committed to safeguarding children's personal data collected online, and to helping parents and guardians and their children learn how to exercise control over personal data while exploring the Internet.

If you are aged 12 or under (a child), we will require permission from your parent, carer or person with parental responsibility in order for you to register for a Ghana Football App account. If you are a child, you will be asked to give the name and email address of the person with parental responsibility for you. A confirmation email will then be sent to them. Your Ghana Football App account will only become active once that person has responded to that email confirming their parental responsibility and providing their consent. We may take other reasonable steps to confirm parental responsibility.

All personal data in respect of non-authorised child accounts is deleted immediately where parental consent has been refused and after 21 days if a child’s account is not verified.

If you have parental responsibility and would like to review any personal data that we have collected online from your child, have this information deleted, and/or request that there be no further collection or use of your child’s personal data or if you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or practices, you may contact us at dataprotection@ghanafootballapp.com.

11. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal data, please contact us using the following contact details:

Ghana Football App Data Protection Lead

Block “C” Hse No. F180/5

Ndebaninge Sithole Rd.

North labone Accra

dataprotection@ghanafootballapp.com

+233545553535