How we look after your club’s data

Where your data lives

Sports Club OS runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS), in Sydney, Australia (see Data storage). Your club’s records, its members, bookings, invoices, rosters and messages, are stored there.

• Your records are encrypted at rest. The database that holds them is encrypted where it is stored.
• Pictures and files your club uploads are kept in Sydney too.
• Every connection is encrypted (HTTPS). Pages reach the browser through AWS’s worldwide delivery network; the records themselves stay in Australia.

Data storage

Your club’s data is kept in Australia. It is stored on Amazon Web Services in Sydney.

• Your data stays in Australia, its backups included.
• A separate AWS account for each club. Each club’s system and data run in a separate AWS account of their own, in Sydney, so one club’s data is never stored alongside another’s.

Who can see what

Each person sees only what their role allows, and your club decides what each role allows.

• Roles, not people. A person can hold any number of roles: administrator, office staff, treasurer, bar manager, coach, competition convener and others. Each role grants a set of permissions, and the club can change what each one grants. See the starting roles.
• Enforced on the server. Every request to the system is checked against the permission it needs before anything is read or changed. Anything not listed is refused. Hiding a button is never the protection.
• Members see their own. A member’s own bookings, invoices and details are kept apart from the office’s screens, and no role can be given another member’s personal pages.
• Every change is recorded. An audit log keeps who did what, and when. If an administrator uses the system as someone else to help them, the log records the real person.
• Doors, lights and swipe cards. Physical access to the club’s buildings is a separate, planned part of Sports Club OS. Read what is planned.
• Public screens say less. Clubhouse TVs and public draw pages show names and scores only, and anyone under 18 appears by first name and initial. The public membership form never reveals whether a name belongs to a member.

Starting roles

These are the roles a club starts with. Each line says what the role can do.

These are the starting roles. The club can change what each role may do on its Roles & permissions page, give a person several roles, and take a role away when they step down. The server checks every request against those roles, so a hidden button is never the only protection.

Sign-in security

• Club logins only. People sign in with an account the club gives them. There is no sign-in through Google, Microsoft or other outside accounts. Passwords are kept by AWS’s sign-in service, not in your club’s records, and nobody at the club can see them.
• Passwords must be at least 10 characters, with upper case, lower case and a number.
• Two-factor sign-in with an authenticator app is available to every login. Approving a change to your club’s website requires it.
• Sign-ins are renewed every hour.
• Links in emails and texts (a staff member’s yes or no to a shift, an unsubscribe link) carry a one-off code. Only a scrambled fingerprint of each code is stored, and each one reaches only its own small job.
• Access tests on every release. Before each release, an automated test signs in as a member and as a member of staff with limited roles, tries every part of the system, and fails if they can reach anything they should not.

Updates and patching

• No servers to patch. Sports Club OS runs on AWS managed services: Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudFront and Cognito. There are no servers for your club to look after, or for us. AWS applies the operating system and runtime security patches.
• Released when the tests pass. A change is released when the automated tests pass. They include an access test that signs in as different roles and checks every route.
• New features through the year, at no extra cost. They are shaped by the clubs using Sports Club OS.
• You can see which release you are on. The account menu in Sports Club OS names the release your club is on, and each Help centre article says which release it was last checked against.

Support is covered under Support, training and updates.

AI and your data

Sports Club OS uses AI in four places: it drafts an email or rewords a paragraph for you, changes your club’s website when you ask in plain words, answers questions about the club’s figures (the AI Report Assistant), and answers how-do-I questions and takes feedback (Help and feedback). It uses Anthropic’s Claude models, hosted by AWS in Australia.

• The email and website assistants are sent no member data. To draft a message, the model is sent your description and the club’s name, and nothing else. Merge fields such as a first name are filled in later, by the system, when the email is sent.
• The AI Report Assistant reads figures as the person asking. It sees only the figures that person’s roles already let them open, and figures about very small groups of people are hidden from anyone who cannot see members. It can only read: it changes nothing and keeps nothing. The log records that a question was asked, and by whom, never the question or the answer.
• Help and feedback is sent no member data. It is sent the person’s words, the names of the page they are on and of their roles, and Sports Club OS’s own notes on the pages they can open. It is not sent their name, what is on their screen or any of the club’s records, and it changes nothing. The conversation is kept in the club system, where the club’s administrator can read it; one where nothing was saved is cleared after 90 days.
• Saved feedback reaches the makers of Sports Club OS. When someone saves feedback, a summary is emailed to the makers of Sports Club OS so they can improve it. It holds the summary, the page and the person’s roles, never their name, email or the conversation.
• AI requests are processed in Australia. The model runs on AWS in Australia, so a request is processed there.
• What the AI writes is checked. A draft can only contain what a person could type into the editor: text, headings, links and pictures. It cannot add code to an email.
• Nothing is published without a person. A website change is a draft until the person your club names approves it.
• The log records that a draft was asked for, and by whom, not what was typed.

Email and consent

• Members choose what they hear about. Each email address has its own choices, by category, and every change to them is recorded: what, when, how and by whom.
• Essential notices are kept apart. One category, essential club notices, cannot be switched off. Every other kind of email can.
• Unsubscribing is one click. Optional emails carry an unsubscribe link and the headers mail programs use for one-click unsubscribing. Essential notices carry neither.
• Bounces and complaints are honoured. An address that bounces, or whose owner marks a message as spam, is not emailed again until the office clears it.
• The sender confirms the number. Before a message goes out, the sender sees who is left out and why, confirms how many people it will reach, and has 30 seconds to stop it.

Payments

Payments are recorded against each invoice when they arrive by bank transfer or at the club. Sports Club OS does not take card payments today, and holds no card numbers. Online card payment is being built; when it arrives, card details will be handled by a payment provider and will not be stored in Sports Club OS.

If the club reconciles its bank statement, the statement file is read in the browser and is not stored. The lines from it are kept, with long numbers in the bank’s descriptions cut down to their last three digits, and of each bank account only the bank, the BSB and the last four digits of the number are kept. Reconciling never changes a payment.

Backups and continuity

• Continuous backups with point-in-time recovery. Your club’s records can be restored to any moment in the recovery window (35 days by default).
• Your website keeps every version. Each published version is kept and cannot be deleted, so going back to an earlier one is one press.
• Several data centres. The system runs across several AWS data centres in Sydney.

Your website and the club system are kept apart

Your club’s public website is hosted separately from the club system, at a different address, with its own storage. A page on the website cannot reach a member’s details. It can send the system three things from its public forms: a membership application, a function enquiry and a request for a place in a class. It can read two: which days each room is free, and the public classes timetable, which never says who has booked.

Drafts of website changes are shown at their own private preview addresses, sealed off so they can store nothing and reach nothing.

The services we use

These are the companies that handle your club’s data.

The company that provides them is Amazon Web Services, Inc. and its affiliates. We will update this list before adding another service that handles your club’s data.

Your rights, and leaving

• Your club’s data belongs to your club. We use it to run the system for you. The one other thing we receive is feedback: when someone in your club saves feedback through Help and feedback, a summary is emailed to us, the makers of Sports Club OS, so we can improve it. It holds the summary, the page and the person’s roles, never their name, email or the conversation. We do not sell your club’s data or share it.
• Members can see and correct their own details, and choose which emails they receive. The office can correct anything else.
• The club can download everything itself. The Administrator can download all the club’s records at any time, as spreadsheets (CSV) and JSON files in one zip, with a README that says what each file holds. Secret codes and sign-in tokens are left out. Each download is recorded in the audit log.
• If you leave, we will work with you on anything the download does not hold, such as the website’s pictures and documents and the sign-in accounts, before your account closes. We then delete your club’s data.

Privacy laws and standards

Sports Club OS is built to support your club’s obligations under these laws:

• The Australian Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, including the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.
• The New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.
• The EU GDPR and the UK GDPR, for clubs with members in Europe or the United Kingdom.
• The Spam Act 2003, for email consent. See Email and consent.

What the system does today to support them:

• Members can see and correct their own details.
• The Administrator can download everything the club holds, and the office can delete a person’s record when they ask.
• Each email address’s consent is recorded, and optional emails have a one-click unsubscribe.
• Access is by role, checked on the server.
• An audit log records who did what, and when.
• Every connection is encrypted, and the database is encrypted at rest.
• Continuous backups with point-in-time recovery.
• Your data is kept in Australia, on Amazon Web Services in Sydney (see Data storage).
• The email and website assistants are sent no member data.

Our commitments to your club:

• Your club is the data controller, and Sports Club OS is the processor. We handle members’ details on your club’s behalf and on its instructions.
• A data processing agreement is available on request.
• Breach notification. If a breach affects your club’s data, we will tell your club without undue delay, and within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, so that a club under the GDPR can meet its own 72-hour deadline.
• The companies we use are listed under The services we use, and we will update the list before adding another.

Certifications. Sports Club OS does not hold a certification of its own. Our infrastructure provider, AWS, holds ISO/IEC 27001 certification, SOC 2 reports and an IRAP assessment for its services.

Contact for security

If you think you have found a security problem, or you have a question about how your club’s data is looked after, email hello@sportsclubos.net. Please do not include members’ personal details in the email.

If we learn of a breach that affects your club’s data, we will tell your club without undue delay, say what happened and what we are doing about it, and meet our obligations under the Australian Privacy Act, including the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.