Privacy Policy

Who We Are

Academy Swim Team is a volunteer-led swimming club based in Burnham-On-Sea. For the purposes of UK data protection law, the club is the data controller for the personal information it collects and uses.

If you have any questions about this policy or how your information is handled, please contact the club committee through the details on our contact page.

Information We Collect

Depending on your relationship with the club, we may collect and use:

• Names, dates of birth, addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, and emergency contact details.
• Parent or guardian contact details for junior swimmers.
• Swimming information, such as squad, attendance, competition entries, results, personal bests, and training progress.
• Medical, allergy, access, disability, or welfare information needed to support safe participation.
• Membership, payment, direct debit, fee, and account administration information.
• Volunteer, official, coach, committee, safeguarding, qualification, and training information.
• Messages, form submissions, and enquiries sent through the website or club systems.
• Photos, videos, and event reports where these are used for club records, news, promotion, or celebration of achievements.
• Basic technical information about website use, such as IP address, browser type, and device information, where this is collected by our hosting or analytics services.

How We Use Your Information

We use personal information to:

• Run club membership, squads, training sessions, competitions, events, and trials.
• Communicate with members, parents, guardians, coaches, volunteers, and officials.
• Manage safeguarding, welfare, health and safety, attendance, emergency contact, and inclusion needs.
• Administer fees, payments, refunds, records, and club accounts.
• Submit competition entries, record results, and meet governing body requirements.
• Recruit, organise, and support volunteers, officials, committee members, coaches, and teachers.
• Maintain club records, respond to enquiries, and deal with complaints or disciplinary matters.
• Publish appropriate club news, achievements, photos, and updates where we have a lawful reason to do so.
• Keep the website and club systems secure and working properly.

Our Lawful Bases

We only use personal information where we have a lawful basis under UK data protection law. These may include:

• Contract: to provide membership, training, events, and related club services.
• Legal obligation: to meet accounting, safeguarding, health and safety, or governing body obligations.
• Legitimate interests: to manage and develop the club, communicate with members, keep records, and promote club activities in a fair and proportionate way.
• Consent: where we ask for clear permission, such as for certain photos, marketing, or optional communications.
• Vital interests: where information is needed in an emergency.

Where we process special category information, such as medical, disability, or welfare information, we do so only where an additional condition applies, including explicit consent, safeguarding, health and safety, or substantial public interest reasons.

Children's Information

Many of our members are children, so we take extra care with junior swimmer information. We normally collect children's personal information through a parent or guardian and use it only where needed to run the club safely and appropriately.

Who We Share Information With

We may share relevant information with:

• Swim England, county, regional, and competition organisers where required for membership, governance, entries, licensing, or results.
• Coaches, teachers, team managers, welfare officers, officials, and committee members who need the information for their club role.
• Payment, membership, communication, website, form, email, cloud storage, and administration service providers used by the club.
• Schools, leisure centres, pool operators, or event venues where needed for safe access or event management.
• Safeguarding bodies, emergency services, insurers, professional advisers, or legal authorities where required or appropriate.

We do not sell personal information.

Photos, Videos, and Results

Swimming clubs often use photos, videos, names, age groups, event results, and achievement stories to celebrate swimmers and promote the club. We will follow club safeguarding expectations and any relevant permissions or objections recorded with us.

If you have a concern about a photo, video, or named result on the website or club channels, please contact us and we will review it promptly.

How Long We Keep Information

We keep personal information only for as long as needed for club purposes, legal requirements, safeguarding, insurance, accounting, and record keeping. Some records, such as safeguarding, incident, financial, qualification, competition, or historical club records, may need to be kept for longer than active membership records.

How We Protect Information

We use reasonable organisational and technical measures to protect personal information, including limiting access to people who need it for their club role. No online system can be guaranteed completely secure, but we aim to keep information accurate, protected, and used responsibly.

Your Rights

Under UK data protection law, you may have the right to ask for access to your personal information, correction of inaccurate information, deletion, restriction, objection, portability, or withdrawal of consent where consent is the lawful basis.

Some rights may be limited where the club has another lawful reason to keep or use the information, such as safeguarding, legal, accounting, or insurance requirements.

Cookies and Website Services

Our website uses essential cookies for site security, member/admin sessions, and remembering simple site choices such as whether you have seen our cookie notice. These are needed for the website to work properly.

Some pages include third-party services such as Microsoft Forms, Google Calendar, externally hosted fonts, icons, scripts, or other embedded content. These providers may receive technical information about your visit, such as your IP address, browser, device, and the page you visited, and may use cookies or similar technologies according to their own privacy and cookie terms.

We do not currently use advertising pixels or behavioural marketing trackers on the active website. If this changes, we will update this policy and the website's cookie information.

Complaints

Please contact us first if you are concerned about how we handle personal information, and we will try to resolve the issue. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes To This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will be published on this page.