Guidelines on posting meet results on websites

A couple of weeks ago USAG released new guidance on what information related to meet results can and can't be posted to USAG affiliated web sites.

As of this notice, it is no longer permissible to list any athlete’s date of birth, age or personal contact information on public access pages for online meet results. The Age Group of the competitors may be part of the results. We also request the meet director lists only the club’s name and state and does not publish the address of the club. Meet Directors must state on their entry form that the results of the competition will be posted online on their club site or state/regional site. Club owners/directors /coach must state to the parents that meet results will be posted on line at club/state/regional/national websites

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6506) allows parents to control what information is collected about their child (younger than 13 years old) online. Operators of websites that either target children or knowingly collect personal information from children are required to post privacy policies, obtain parental consent before collecting information from children, allow parents to determine how such information is used, and provide the option to parents to opt-out of future collection from their child.

Although the meet director is not getting the information directly from the child, it is in the best interest of our members to respect their privacy in the areas of specific information such as birthdates, addresses, social security number and phone numbers.

I took a quick look back at the results we posted at last year's Meet Me in St. Louis, and as far as I can tell we meet the guidelines for what information should and should not be posted. (Most of it is just good common sense.) The issues we are looking at for this year's meet follows from the text I highlighted in bold above, specifically:

• what exactly should the privacy policy say
• how do we get parental consent (and do we need to get it every time we post info or can we use a blanket "release" form)
• how do we handle the situation when we don't have parental permission (do we just list a club name instead of the athlete's name in the results)
• etc etc.

To help us all figure this out, and share what we know, I've started a discussion on this topic the Tramp and Tumble Network asking these very questions. If you have any thoughts or insights on this, please stop by and share.