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Student data and privacy

The short version

GearCorral tracks school uniforms and equipment. To do that, it needs to know which athlete has which item, and how to reach the family when it's due back.

  • We act for your school. Your team's records belong to your school, not to us.
  • We do not sell student data. We do not show ads. We do not use student data for marketing.
  • Families only get email when a coach decides to send it.
  • A stranger who finds a lost jersey sees the team name and where to return it. They never see a student's name.

What GearCorral stores

About each athlete

  • Name, gender, team level and age, as already on the team roster. Coaches add these by hand or by roster import.
  • Which gear they have, when it was handed out, when it's due, the replacement cost, and its condition when returned.
  • Clothing sizes (jersey, shorts, shoes and so on), if the coach collects them.

About each family contact (up to 3 per athlete)

  • Name, relationship (parent, guardian, athlete, other), email and phone.
  • A coach types these in or imports them from a CSV. Families never have to create an account.

About the coaches

  • Account name and email, and the team they belong to.

What we do not collect

  • No grades or test scores, no health information, no home addresses, no birthdates, no Social Security numbers.
  • GearCorral never asks for a photo of a student.

Why we use it: to hand out gear, get it back, and email the family about it. Nothing else.

What different people can see

  • Volunteer with a scanner link: the team's athlete names with counts of items out, and the scanner. No costs, no family contacts, no coach list.
  • Someone who scans a lost-gear QR label: the team name, the item type and size, and the team's return instructions. No student name.
  • A parent opening their email links: their own athlete's first name and last initial, the gear list and costs.
  • Anyone with the sizing-form link: the roster as first name and last initial, and a box for sizes.

Volunteer scanner links

  • A coach makes the link. It works for 1 to 24 hours and no longer. The coach can switch it off at any time.
  • The first phone to open it locks it. A second phone is refused.
  • It does the jobs the coach turned on (hand out, return, and optionally stage bags).
  • We store a one-way scrambled version of the link, not the link itself. A database leak couldn't be used to open someone's link.

Lost-and-found label page

Scanning a QR label opens a page with the team name, the item (for example "Singlet #12 M") and its code, and the coach's return instructions. The page says "No personal details are shown." It is not indexed by search engines.

Sizing form

  • A coach shares one link with the team. It works for 14 days by default, up to 90, and the coach can turn it off.
  • The athlete picks their name from a list that shows first name and last initial only (a few more letters if two names would look the same), then picks sizes.
  • A change to a size already on file waits for the coach to approve.

Family links in emails

  • "Acknowledge receipt" and "I returned something" links last 60 days. "Stop gear emails" never expires.
  • The acknowledge page shows the athlete's first name and last initial, the items, and costs. The family types their own name to confirm. It says it is not a waiver.
  • The "I returned something" page shows only that one athlete's gear still out.

Email

  • Only a coach sends family email. GearCorral never emails a family on its own. A coach reviews a "Family emails" list and clicks Send. Reminders are also started by a coach.
  • Only addresses the coach put on the athlete's contact list get mail.
  • Emails are receipts, return notices, and reminders about gear that athlete holds. No marketing, no newsletters.
  • Every family email has an unsubscribe link. One click on the page, or one tap in the mail app's own unsubscribe button, stops gear email from that team to that address. It can be undone.
  • Each email is checked again right before it's delivered. If the family has unsubscribed or the contact was removed since the coach clicked Send, it isn't sent.
  • Each team has a cap on family emails per day, covering all kinds together. The default is 200 and a coach can set it between 1 and 1,000. It also stops accidental double sends.
  • The email shows the team's name as the sender ("Lincoln Volleyball via GearCorral"), and a reply goes to the coach who sent it.

How long we keep data

When a coach removes an athlete from the roster

  • Their family contacts, their sizes, and their email-sent records are deleted right away.
  • The history of gear they held stays under their name (for example "Sam Rivera had Singlet #12, returned Oct 3"). This is so the school keeps an accurate record of what happened to its equipment.

Security basics

  • All traffic uses HTTPS.
  • Public links (volunteer, sizing, receipts, unsubscribe) use long random tokens. Volunteer and sizing links are stored scrambled.
  • Coach pages need a signed-in coach on that team.