Children’s privacy policy

Our platform is used by parents and organizations, not children

HometownLift provides operations tools for youth sports teams, booster clubs, PTAs, veteran organizations, and community nonprofits — including fundraising, participant registration, memberships, sponsorships, ticketing, raffles, concessions, an online store, equipment checkout, and volunteer scheduling. These accounts and transactions are created and managed by adults: parents and guardians, coaches, and organization administrators.

HometownLift is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly permit children under 13 to create accounts, make purchases, sign up for volunteer shifts, or otherwise interact with the platform directly. A child may appear in our records — for example, as the athlete or participant a parent registers — but the information is provided by, and the account is controlled by, a parent, guardian, or authorized adult, never by the child.

Information relating to children that we may collect

When a parent, guardian, or organization administrator registers a child as an athlete or participant, or otherwise records information about a child in the course of running a program, that information may include:

• the child’s first and last name and, where the program requires it, date of birth or age;
• the child’s team, division, program, grade, jersey/unit number, or roster placement;
• enrollment and eligibility details a program collects (for example, uniform sizes, waivers or consent forms signed by a parent, and division or age-group assignments);
• a photo of the child, where an adult chooses to upload one (for example, an athlete fundraising page or a game-day check-in card); and
• equipment issued to a child — the item and unit number checked out to a participant — recorded by an organizer.

The contact information tied to a child’s record — e-mail address, mailing address, and phone number — belongs to the parent, guardian, or adult who registers the child, not to the child. We do not ask children to provide contact information, and we do not solicit any personal information directly from children.

How we obtain parental consent

Because a child’s information reaches HometownLift only through an adult, verifiable parental consent is built into the act of using the platform. Specifically:

• a parent or guardian creates the registration, enters the child’s details, agrees to our Terms of Use and this policy, and — where a program charges a fee — completes payment through our payment processor using their own verified payment method;
• an organization administrator or coach who records a child on a roster does so under their own authenticated account and under the organization’s authority to collect that information from member families; and
• any waiver, consent form, or media-release the program uses is reviewed and signed by the parent or guardian, not the child.

We use a child’s information only for the program purpose it was provided for — running registration and enrollment, issuing and tracking equipment, operating fundraising or athlete pages the parent set up, check-in and eligibility at events, and communicating with the registering adult about that activity. We do not use children’s information for marketing, and we do not condition a child’s participation on disclosing more information than is reasonably needed for the activity.

Parental rights: review, edit, and deletion

As the parent or guardian, you have the right to review the personal information we have collected about your child, to correct or update it, to refuse to permit its further collection or use, and to request that we delete it. You can:

• view and edit much of your child’s registration and participant information directly from your account with the organization; and
• contact us at rt@hometownlift.comto review, correct, or delete your child’s information, or to withdraw your consent to our further use of it.

Before granting access to, or acting on a request about, a child’s information, we will take reasonable steps to verify that you are the child’s parent or guardian. If you ask us to delete your child’s information or withdraw consent, please understand that the child may no longer be able to participate in the program the information supported (for example, remaining on a roster or keeping an active fundraising page). We may retain limited records where required to complete a transaction you requested or to comply with our legal obligations.

How children’s information is shared

We do not sell children’s personal information, and we do not share it for advertising or other commercial purposes. A child’s information is visible to the organization the child is registered with (its coaches and administrators), and it is shared only with the service providers that help us operate the platform on our behalf — such as our payment processor, database and hosting providers, and e-mail delivery vendor — and only to the extent needed to run the program the parent signed up for. Those providers are listed in our Privacy Policy.

Tracking and third-party technologies

HometownLift does not serve behavioral or targeted advertising and does not place third-party advertising networks, ad pixels, or cross-site tracking cookies on our pages, including on pages where children’s information may appear. The essential cookie that keeps a signed-in adult logged in, the cookieless performance analytics we use to measure page speed, and any aggregate, anonymized site analytics are described in our Privacy Policy. We do not use these technologies to build profiles of children or to track children across other websites or services.

Data security

We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the information we collect, including information about children, against loss, misuse, and unauthorized access. Sensitive information such as payment and account credentials is exchanged over an encrypted connection (HTTPS/TLS), and payments are processed by Stripe, a PCI-DSS Level 1 certified processor; HometownLift does not store full card numbers on its own servers. We retain children’s information only as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purpose it was collected for or as required by law, and we dispose of it securely thereafter.

Changes to this policy

We may amend this Children’s Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make a material change to how we collect, use, or disclose children’s information, we will post the updated policy here and revise the “Last updated” date above; where the law requires it, we will obtain renewed parental consent. Your continued use of the platform after an update takes effect reflects the practices then in place.

Contact us

If you have questions about this policy, want to review or delete your child’s information, or believe we may have collected information from a child under 13 without proper parental consent, please contact us at rt@hometownlift.comand we will respond promptly. If we learn that we have collected a child’s personal information without the required consent, we will delete it.

You may also contact the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which enforces COPPA, at 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357) or online at reportfraud.ftc.gov.