Privacy
Poule is a tool for running fencing poules and tournaments. It has two parts: this site, and the Poule Referee app for iPhone and Android that a referee scores from. Neither has user accounts or advertising. This page covers both, and says in plain terms what they store and what anyone else can see.
1. Who is responsible
Jonathan Fontes operates this site. Write to him at privacy@esgrima.pt. For the data an organiser enters about their own event, see section 5: responsibility there is shared.
2. What is stored
Competition data. The name of the competition, the names of the fencers taking part, their club, their seeding, every score, the touch-by-touch record of each bout, and the times at which all of this happened.
Organiser data. If a competition is created as private, the e-mail address and password chosen at that moment. We never store the password as you typed it. We store a cryptographic hash instead, and nobody can reverse it.
Technical data. A session cookie, so that an organiser who has signed in stays signed in. Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, which may include your IP address, for security and troubleshooting.
There is no analytics, no advertising network, and no third-party tracking script anywhere on this site. Nothing you do here is shared with an advertiser or a data broker.
3. The Poule Referee app
Poule Referee is the app a referee scores a bout from, on iPhone and on Android. It has no account, no sign-up, and asks for nothing about you. A referee gets in with a six-digit code from the organiser. That code is all the app ever knows about who is holding the phone.
The camera. Used for one thing: reading the QR code that carries those six digits. No photograph is stored, and no image ever leaves the phone. Typing the digits instead does the same job, so the camera can be refused outright.
What stays on the phone. The app exchanges the code for a token that expires after an hour of inactivity. The token is held in the Keychain on iPhone, and on Android it is encrypted with a key kept in the system Keystore. A result you enter with no signal waits on the phone until it can go. It carries the bout it belongs to and the touches, never a fencer’s name.
What the app sends here. The code, the scores, and a fixed label naming the app and the system it runs on: iOS · Poule Referee or Android · Poule Referee. That label is the same on every phone running that system, and it identifies neither the device nor the person holding it. The scores become part of the competition, and everything else on this page covers them. The app sends nothing else: no device identifier, no advertising identifier, no location.
There is no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising, and no tracking of any kind in the app. It collects no data about the person using it, and there is therefore nothing to link to you or to follow you across other apps and websites.
The bout timer inside the app runs offline and touches nothing: no competition, no network, no storage.
4. Competitions are public by default
Unless a competition is created as private, it is listed on the front page of this site and can be opened by anyone. That listing includes the names of the fencers, their clubs, and their results. Search engines may index it.
A private competition is not listed, and nobody can open it without the organiser’s e-mail and password. If a competition should not be public, create it as private. Write to us to change a competition that is already public.
5. Who is responsible for a fencer’s data
When an organiser adds fencers to a competition, they are entering the personal data of other people. The organiser decides who is added, what name is used, and whether the competition is public. That makes the organiser responsible for having a lawful reason to publish those names, usually the fencer’s entry into the competition or their consent.
We provide the tool and the hosting, and we decide how the site works. Where our decisions affect a fencer’s data, we are responsible alongside the organiser.
If you are a fencer and your name appears here without a good reason, you do not have to go through the organiser. Write to us at privacy@esgrima.pt and we will act on it directly.
6. Why we are allowed to store this
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), our lawful basis is legitimate interest: running and publishing the results of a sporting competition is what this site is for, and results are ordinarily made public in the sport. For the organiser’s e-mail and password, the basis is performance of the service they asked for.
You can object to processing based on legitimate interest at any time. See section 9.
7. Cookies
One cookie, used to keep an organiser signed in to their own competition. It is strictly necessary for the site to work and is not used to track you. There are no advertising or analytics cookies, which is why this site does not show you a cookie banner.
8. How long it is kept
Competitions are kept for as long as the site exists, so that results stay available at the link that was shared. There is currently no automatic deletion.
If you want a competition, or a single fencer’s data within one, removed sooner, write to us and we will do it.
9. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to ask us to:
- tell you what data we hold about you
- correct it if it is wrong
- delete it
- stop processing it, or object to it being published
- give you a copy of it
Write to privacy@esgrima.pt. We will answer within one month. Requests to remove a name from a public competition are acted on quickly and do not require you to explain yourself.
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the Portuguese data protection authority, the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados.
10. Fencers under 18
Fencing competitions include minors. This site cannot tell a fencer’s age from their name, so it applies no special treatment automatically. The organiser is responsible, and must be sure they may publish a minor’s name and club before adding them.
A parent or guardian can ask us to remove a minor’s data at any time, at the address above. We will not ask for a reason.
11. Where the data is
We store the data on servers in the European Union and do not transfer it outside.
12. Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. We will note significant changes on the front page.