Children’s Act notice

PitchKit is registered with federations that include players younger than 18. Under the Children’s Act, a child cannot give independent legal consent to the processing of their personal information for purposes outside the immediate sporting activity. A parent or legal guardian must consent on their behalf, and that consent must be informed and revocable.

1. When this applies

The registration wizard reads the player’s date of birth from their South African ID number. If the player is under 18 at the date of registration, the wizard automatically inserts an additional Guardian / parent step before the POPIA consent step.

No registration can be completed for a minor without a guardian completing this step.

2. What the guardian is consenting to

The guardian, by ticking the Children’s Act consent box and submitting the registration, confirms that they:

• Are the parent or legal guardian of the named player.
• Have authority to consent to football participation and to the processing of personal information for that purpose.
• Have read and understood the POPIA notice.
• Accept the federation’s code of conduct and the disciplinary process.
• Acknowledge that the public player profile (if separately ticked) will display the player’s name, photo, position, club and statistics.
• Accept responsibility for the accuracy of the information provided.

3. The exact consent text recorded

4. What we capture and store

• The guardian’s full name and relationship to the player (parent, guardian, grandparent, adult sibling, other).
• The guardian’s contact phone and optionally email.
• Optionally, the last four digits of the guardian’s SA ID number, for audit purposes only.
• The exact text version (1.0), the timestamp, and the source IP of the consent action.

5. Revocation

The guardian may withdraw consent at any time by emailing the federation administrator and copying admin@digitalbits.co.za. Withdrawal triggers:

• Immediate suspension of the player’s active registration.
• Removal of the public player profile from /p/<handle>.
• An offer to delete or retain (anonymised) historic match data, per the guardian’s preference.

6. Public profile separately ticked

The Children’s Act consent above does not by itself authorise publication of the player’s public profile. That is a separate, explicitly-ticked consent on the same screen, defaulted to off for minors. The guardian must independently tick that box if they wish the profile to be visible at /p/<handle>.

7. Best-interest principle

In every decision PitchKit makes about a minor’s data, the child’s best interest is the paramount consideration (Children’s Act s.7). Where a decision is unclear, we default to the more protective option: less data shared, less retention, profile private.