Privacy Policy

The website is operated under the name “Matstories” in Queensland, Australia. References to “Matstories”, “we”, “our” or “us” mean the operator of the Matstories website.

Matstories adopts the practices in this Policy as a transparency standard. Whether the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and Australian Privacy Principles apply depends on the operator's circumstances and statutory exemptions, including the small business exemption where it is available. Where a mandatory privacy law gives a person greater rights than this Policy, that law prevails.

Matstories is aimed at Australian competitions and an Australian audience. People identified in source records may live in other countries. If another privacy law applies to a particular person, Matstories will consider that law when handling a request from that person.

This Policy is the collection notice for personal information Matstories handles. Matstories does not usually collect information directly from the athlete. It collects public competition records from source pages published by event organisers and registration platforms.

It is not practicable to give a separate personal notice to every athlete, parent, academy or organiser before indexing a public result. The volume of public records, the absence of reliable private contact details, and the fact that the source pages are already public make individual notice before collection impracticable. This Policy, the website itself, and responses to emailed requests are how Matstories makes people aware of the handling.

Registration with a source platform, or appearance on a public event page, is not treated by Matstories as consent to Matstories specifically. Matstories relies on the public nature of the records, the purpose of operating a competition information service, and applicable law.

Matstories collects and derives information from publicly accessible competition records, which may include:

• athlete name and public source profile identifier;
• academy or gym affiliation and belt information;
• event registration, division, age-class label and gi or no-gi category;
• opponents, match outcome, recorded method, points, advantages, penalties and event details;
• placement, medal and other published competition results;
• whether a division is labelled as youth or adult on the source page; and
• derived totals, records, win rates, comparisons, insights, badges and recent form.

The same information may appear in search results, athlete and event pages, gym pages, rankings, blog posts, share images and social previews.

Matstories does not intentionally collect athlete contact details, residential addresses, dates of birth, government identifiers, payment details, health records, passwords or private account information from source platforms.

Matstories does not use a login, cookie, token or other credential to obtain private competition-platform data. If a source page later becomes private, login-gated or hidden, Matstories may still hold an earlier public copy until it is updated, suppressed or removed.

When you access the website, Matstories and its infrastructure providers may automatically process technical information needed to deliver and protect the service, including IP address, browser and device information, requested URL, referring page, approximate location derived from network information, timestamps, response status and diagnostic or security events.

Search terms and filters appear in request URLs and may therefore be included in server, CDN or security logs. Do not enter confidential or sensitive information into the search field.

Matstories currently has no user accounts, comments, uploads or checkout facility. It does not use first-party advertising pixels or behavioural advertising. Matstories uses Google Analytics 4 to measure visits, page views and similar usage.

Matstories links to an external Buy Me a Coffee page for optional support. Matstories does not collect or process card details. Buy Me a Coffee processes contributions under its own terms and privacy policy and may provide Matstories with information a supporter chooses to share, such as a display name, message and contribution amount.

Matstories obtains information through:

• public event, athlete, bracket and results pages published by competition platforms and organisers;
• automated collection processes that periodically retrieve and normalise those public records;
• calculations and associations derived from source records;
• emails and other messages people send to Matstories; and
• automatic website, network, hosting, database and security operations.

Publicly available information remains personal information where it identifies an individual. Matstories handles it as personal information, not as information that can be used for any purpose.

Matstories processes information to:

• provide searchable athlete, event, head-to-head and academy records;
• help athletes, families, coaches and supporters follow Australian competitions;
• calculate and present competition statistics, insights and editorial coverage;
• link records that reasonably appear to concern the same athlete;
• update, correct, secure, troubleshoot and improve the website;
• measure website usage through Google Analytics;
• detect misuse, automated abuse, fraud and security threats;
• handle privacy, correction, removal and legal requests;
• maintain backups, logs and operational records; and
• comply with law, court orders and lawful government requests.

Matstories does not use public competition records to make employment, credit, insurance, housing, health, eligibility or other high-impact decisions about athletes. Rankings and insights are published information products, not automated decisions that determine a legal or similarly significant effect.

The central purpose of Matstories is to publish an index of public competition records. Information shown on athlete, event, academy, search, ranking, blog and comparison pages is available to any website visitor and may be indexed, cached, copied, screenshot or archived by search engines and third parties.

Removing or changing information on Matstories does not automatically remove copies already held by a search engine, archive, source platform, social network or another third party. Those services have their own correction and removal processes. Matstories can ask a search engine to recrawl a changed page, but it cannot control when that happens.

Matstories may disclose or make information available to:

• Vercel, which provides website hosting, content delivery, request processing and security;
• Google, which provides Google Analytics for website usage measurement;
• Supabase and its infrastructure providers, which provide database services;
• GitHub and related infrastructure used to run or maintain data collection and source code workflows;
• Iconify and its infrastructure providers, which may deliver icon assets to website visitors;
• Buy Me a Coffee and its payment providers, when a visitor chooses to support Matstories externally;
• professional advisers, insurers, investigators or security specialists where reasonably necessary;
• a successor operator in connection with a reorganisation, transfer or sale of the service; and
• courts, regulators, law-enforcement bodies or other recipients where required or authorised by law.

Matstories does not sell personal information, provide personal information to data brokers, or use public competition records for targeted advertising. Matstories does not disclose personal information in return for payment.

The primary database may be hosted in Australia, but Vercel, GitHub, Google, Supabase, Iconify, Buy Me a Coffee and their subprocessors may process or store information in the United States and other countries where they or their infrastructure providers operate. Those countries may have privacy protections different from Australia.

Provider locations and subprocessors can change. Matstories uses established service providers and takes reasonable steps appropriate to the service, but cannot guarantee that every overseas recipient is subject to Australian privacy law.

Matstories does not intentionally set cookies for accounts, advertising or behavioural profiling. Google Analytics may set cookies or use similar technologies to measure website use. Hosting, security or content-delivery providers may use strictly necessary cookies or comparable network mechanisms to prevent abuse, route requests or protect the service.

Browser “Do Not Track” signals are not standardised. Because Matstories does not currently conduct behavioural advertising or cross-site profiling, it does not operate a separate Do Not Track response mechanism.

Matstories is a general public information service and is not designed for children to create accounts or submit personal information. However, Matstories currently indexes and publicly displays competition records from youth and children's divisions when those records are available from public source pages.

Youth records may include an athlete's name, academy, belt, age-class or division label, event attendance, opponent, match result, recorded method and placement. Matstories does not intentionally collect dates of birth, school information, contact details or residential addresses. Source classifications may be missing, ambiguous or wrong, so Matstories cannot reliably determine every athlete's age.

Information about a child must not be used to identify, contact, target, profile, shame or exploit the child. A parent or guardian may request suppression or removal of a child's record. Matstories treats those requests as a priority and may suppress youth records without requiring a court order. The handling of children's information will be reviewed as Australia's Children's Online Privacy Code is finalised and comes into effect.

Matstories takes reasonable automated and technical steps to associate and calculate records, but it cannot guarantee accuracy. Common issues include duplicate names, changed academy affiliations, incomplete brackets, source corrections, delayed event updates and mistaken identity.

Correcting the original event or competition-platform record is generally the most effective way to correct the authoritative source. Matstories does not promise that a source correction will be detected immediately or that previously indexed information will be automatically deleted.

If Matstories accepts that a displayed record is wrong, it may correct it, add a note, unlink a mistaken identity, suppress the page, or remove the record. Matstories is not obliged to rewrite history to match a preferred narrative, hide a genuine public result, or delete material it is required to keep.

Depending on applicable law, an individual may have rights to request access to, correction of or deletion of personal information, or to object to certain handling. Identity and authority may need to be verified before action is taken, particularly where a request concerns another person or a child.

Email matstories@proton.me with:

• the person's name as it appears on Matstories, and any other name used in competition;
• the relevant Matstories URL if you have it;
• whether you want access, a correction, a note, suppression or removal;
• enough detail to find the record; and
• if you are acting for someone else, evidence of your authority, such as being a parent or guardian.

Matstories aims to acknowledge requests within 7 days and to complete straightforward requests within 30 days. Complex, disputed or high-volume requests may take longer. Matstories may refuse a request that is frivolous, vexatious, insufficiently identified, or that would unreasonably affect other people's records or Matstories' ability to operate the service.

Source-record corrections should also be directed to the relevant event organiser or competition platform. Acting on a request, including by suppressing or removing a record, is not an admission that the original collection or publication was unlawful.

If the Privacy Act applies and a concern cannot be resolved after a reasonable opportunity to respond, a complaint may be made to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. The OAIC generally expects a person to first give the relevant organisation a reasonable opportunity to respond.

Matstories uses access controls, restricted write credentials, encrypted provider connections and other reasonable technical and organisational safeguards. No internet service or database is completely secure, and Matstories cannot guarantee that unauthorised access, loss or misuse will never occur.

Where the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme or another mandatory breach law applies, Matstories will assess and respond to eligible breaches as required by that law.

Public competition records and derived statistics may be retained while they remain relevant to the historical record, the operation of the service, dispute resolution or legal obligations. Technical logs, cached responses and backups are retained according to operational needs and provider schedules.

Information may persist for a limited period in backups, caches and search-engine copies after it is removed from the active website. If a record is suppressed or removed following a valid request, Matstories will take reasonable steps to stop republishing it from active collection, subject to backups, legal holds and source pages that remain public.

Matstories does not currently send marketing emails, SMS messages or targeted advertising based on competition records. If that changes, Matstories will update this Policy and provide any required opt-out.

External platforms and linked websites have their own privacy practices. Matstories is not responsible for how event organisers, registration platforms, search engines or other third parties collect, use, retain or disclose information. A complaint about a source platform's own handling should be directed to that platform.

Matstories may update this Policy when the service, providers, data practices or law changes. The current version and effective date will remain available at this URL. Material changes apply prospectively unless law requires otherwise.