Privacy Policy

Last Updated: October 16, 2026

KarateShowCase LLC ("KarateShowCase," "we," "us," or "our") operates KarateShowCase.com (the "Platform"), a web-based competition management and video hosting platform for martial arts athletes, coaches, and dojo administrators. This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, who can access it, and your rights regarding that data.

1. Information We Collect

Account Data

• Email address (used for login and communication)
• Display name and user role (athlete, coach, or administrator)
• Password (stored in hashed form via Firebase Authentication)
• Profile photo (if uploaded)
• A record of the confirmations you give on our forms: that you are 13 or older, and which version of our Waiver of Liability, Terms of Service and this Privacy Policy you accepted, and when. When an account sets up a dojo, the dojo’s setup record notes the version its owner accepted

Athlete / Fighter Profile Data

• Name, belt rank, age division, weight class
• Competition history, tournament results, and match records
• Profile photos
• Date of birth — optional and private. It may be entered by the athlete, a linked parent or guardian, or the dojo's administrators or lead coach, and is visible only to them. A document the dojo asks a family to sign can show it, and whoever signs that document can read their signed copy. It is used for birthday greetings, age-group suggestions and the documents that ask for it, and never appears on a profile, in search results, or in AI features. It is never used to decide who may act for a child: that stays with the parent or guardian link.

Parent, Guardian and Emergency Contacts

• A dojo can keep, on an athlete's record, the names, phone numbers and email addresses of the athlete's parents or guardians and of emergency contacts, and how each is related to the athlete. It brings them over with its roster from its previous system, or its administrators or lead coach enter them. Whether someone is a parent, a guardian or an emergency contact is the dojo's own record; we do not verify it
• On the Platform they are shown only to the dojo's coaches and administrators, so that whoever is teaching knows whom to call. They are not shown to families, and being listed as a contact does not link anyone to the athlete's record or give them access to it
• A dojo can email a parent or guardian at an address kept this way about membership, scheduling, training and safety, in the dojo's name through KarateShowCase. Each email says why it came and who sent it. It is not agreement to receive news and offers, which are never sent to an address kept this way. An address that someone reported as spam is not emailed again, and one that bounces is not emailed again unless the dojo confirms it was corrected
• A phone number or email address kept this way, including one brought over with a roster, is not agreement to receive text messages or marketing, and KarateShowCase does not add it to any texting or marketing list. Texts sent through the Platform follow Section 8

Video & Media Data

• Match videos uploaded by users or coaches
• Video metadata (title, tournament name, date, opponent)
• YouTube embed URLs (where applicable)

Coaching Notes & Comments

• Text-based coaching notes attached to individual match videos
• Round-by-round scoring annotations

Event Participation

• RSVP answers to your team's tournaments, listings, and seminars

Documents You Sign for a Dojo

A dojo can ask you to sign its documents on the Platform, for example a waiver, a photo release, a membership agreement or an emergency-information form. We keep what you sign: the document's words as you read them, with the dojo's and the athlete's details filled in; any answers you gave in it; the name you typed and the boxes you ticked; your agreement to sign electronically; who signed, for whom and when; and a digital fingerprint of the signed record, kept with it and in our audit records, which is checked whenever the copy is opened. A signed document can be seen by the person who signed it and by the athlete it is for and their linked family while they belong to the dojo, by the dojo's administrators, by its lead coach (except a copy that shows a membership plan or price), and by platform staff as Section 4 describes (except a copy that shows the athlete's date of birth from their record).

Messages You Send Us

• If you use a dojo's contact form: the name, email address, and message you type

Text Messages

• If you agree to receive texts from a dojo or from us, or you text a dojo’s number: your mobile number, the record of your agreement, your STOP and START replies and the switch in your account, and the texts sent to and from your number (Section 8)

Questions You Ask a Dojo's AI Assistant

• If a dojo offers our AI assistant on its website, the questions you type into it and the answers it gives are kept for 90 days so the dojo can see what people ask and improve its answers. They are stored without your name, account, email address, phone number or network address, and email addresses, phone numbers, and card and Social Security numbers you type are removed before anything is stored. Please don't include other personal details, such as names, in your questions
• A question the assistant could not answer is also added, in the same way and without who asked it, to a list the dojo uses to write new answers. It stays on that list until the dojo removes it or the dojo's team space is deleted
• If you are a member of a dojo's staff and use its staff assistant, it reads only the dojo records you are already allowed to see in order to answer you, and it keeps your most recent exchanges with it, so a conversation can continue, and a record of any change you confirm through it

Technical & Operational Data

• Standard server logs kept by our infrastructure providers for security and reliability
• Rate-limit counters on public forms and links that use a salted, one-way hash of your network address — we never store the address itself, and the same visitor produces unrelated hashes on different team sites
• We do not run behavioral analytics, session recording, or tracking inside team spaces. Our public marketing homepage — and only that page — uses Google Analytics (see Section 7)

2. How We Use Your Data

We use collected data exclusively for the following purposes:

• Platform functionality — to provide user accounts, video hosting, competitor profiles, tournament management, and coaching tools
• Coaching & training — to allow authorized coaches and administrators to review match footage and provide feedback
• Communication — to send important account-related notifications; the emails your dojo sends you; among them, if it chooses, news and offers and occasional messages such as a birthday card, which you can stop with the link to unsubscribe at the end of a recent one; and text messages as Section 8 describes
• AI assistants — to answer questions asked of a dojo's AI assistant from the dojo's own material, and to let the dojo see what was asked (Section 1)
• Membership administration & safety — to let a dojo's coaches and administrators reach an athlete's parents, guardians or emergency contacts about membership, scheduling, training and safety (Section 1)
• Security & reliability — to protect accounts, prevent abuse of public forms and links, and keep the Platform running

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal data with third-party advertisers or data brokers.

3. Data Storage & Security

All platform data is stored and processed on Google Cloud / Firebase infrastructure:

• Firebase Authentication for secure login and credential management (passwords are hashed; we never see or store them in plain text)
• Cloud Firestore for structured data (profiles, results, notes)
• Google Cloud Storage for uploaded media (photos), served only through an access-checked media gateway — protected images are never exposed at public storage addresses
• Cloud Functions and Cloud Run for the Platform's server-side operations

Security safeguards in place:

• Encrypted transmission everywhere (HTTPS/TLS), with strict security headers on every page
• Role-based access control enforced by server-side security rules — what each role can see and change is checked on the server, never only in the browser
• Least-privilege service design: each server component runs under its own narrow identity with only the permissions its job requires
• The database keeps a seven-day point-in-time recovery window and a daily backup, each kept for seven days and then deleted, so an operational mistake can be rolled back without keeping long-term copies of your data

While we take reasonable measures to protect your data, no method of electronic storage or transmission is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

4. Who Can See Your Content

Access to your data depends on your role and your dojo's configuration:

• You — full access to your own profile, videos, and the coaching notes on your matches
• Your parent or guardian — a guardian linked to an athlete's record can view and manage that athlete's profile and photo
• Coaches — can view athlete profiles, match videos, and coaching notes within their own dojo; a coach from outside your dojo sees an athlete only if the Platform has explicitly given them access, either to that athlete or to the athlete's whole dojo
• Lead coaches — run the dojo's day-to-day operations for its administrators: they can view and manage its members, roster, attendance and documents, but never what a family has been charged or has paid. A document the dojo sends to the members of a membership plan does show who it went to
• Dojo Administrators — can view and manage their dojo's data and memberships; they cannot edit an athlete's personal profile fields (photo, bio, goals), which belong to the athlete and their guardians
• Platform staff — can access account and operational data as needed for support and moderation. Private coaching notes are deliberately excluded from every support and moderation surface the Platform provides: within the product they are readable only inside your own dojo and by a coach from outside it whom the Platform has given access to you or to your dojo (above), and platform staff do not access them in the ordinary course of operating the Platform. The parent, guardian and emergency contacts a dojo keeps for an athlete (Section 1) are likewise shown on no support or moderation surface, and platform staff do not access them in the ordinary course of operating the Platform; they are part of the export a dojo is given before its team space is deleted

Your content is not publicly visible to the general internet unless you or your administrator explicitly configure it to be, and you can hide your athlete profile from your team's roster at any time.

5. Children's Privacy (COPPA)

Many athletes on this platform are minors, and the Platform is built around that reality: a child's athlete record is created and managed by their dojo, and a parent or legal guardian can be linked to that record — a linked guardian views and manages the child's profile and photo from the guardian's own account.

• Accounts are for adults and teens. Creating an account requires confirming you are 13 years of age or older; children under 13 may not create their own KarateShowCase accounts. A child under 13 participates through an athlete record managed by their dojo and by their parent or guardian's own account
• We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. If we learn that a child under 13 has created an account, we will promptly delete the account and its data
• Parents and guardians linked to an athlete's record can review and update the child's profile and photo directly, and may request deletion of the child's records at any time by contacting us

For athletes aged 13–17, we recommend that a parent or guardian consent to the athlete's participation and stay linked to the athlete's record.

6. Data Retention & Deletion

Your data is retained for as long as your account remains active. Deletion is built into the product, not a request queue:

• Download your data — from My Account → Your data, you can download a copy of the information your account holds (profile, memberships, athlete records, comments, RSVPs) as a file, any time
• Delete your account — from My Account → Delete account, behind a typed confirmation. Deletion runs immediately: your sessions are ended, and your profile, memberships, the athlete records made for your account (including their photos and videos), RSVPs, and notifications are deleted
• Coaching notes you wrote on teammates' videos are anonymized rather than deleted — the text stays with the video it was written about, attributed to "Former member" with your identity removed — so an athlete's coaching record stays whole
• Guardians: deleting your own account removes your link to a child's record; it never deletes the child's record, which stays with their dojo
• Records your dojo already held: if your dojo connected your account to an athlete record it already had — for example one it brought over from its previous system, or created before you had an account — deleting your account disconnects you from that record and clears its profile details (its photo, bio, goals, achievements and links). The record and its history stay with the dojo: its ranks and gradings, attendance, results, matches and their videos, and belt-requirement submissions, including any you added
• Documents you signed for a dojo are the dojo's record of what was agreed, and deleting your account does not change or delete them, whether you signed for yourself, signed for a child, or a document was signed for you. Each is kept exactly as it was signed. We keep signed documents for as long as the dojo's team space exists: when a dojo's team space is deleted, the dojo is first given an export of its records that includes every signed document (for a paper or previous-system record, its details; the scanned file is the dojo's own copy), and they are deleted with it. Whether a signed document must be kept is the dojo's decision, under the laws that apply to it; to have one deleted sooner, ask the dojo, and we act on its instruction
• Dojo owners: an account that owns a dojo must transfer ownership (or contact us) before it can be deleted, so a team is never orphaned by accident
• Uploaded files, such as photographs and scanned documents, are destroyed by a scheduled cleanup after their records are deleted, typically within 48 hours; our file storage keeps a destroyed file recoverable to us for seven days after that, and then deletes it
• Deleted data remains recoverable to us for seven days: through the database's seven-day point-in-time recovery window and its daily backups, each kept for seven days and then deleted (Section 3), and, for a destroyed file, through the seven days our file storage keeps it (above). After that, we operate no mechanism that can bring it back. Our infrastructure providers (Section 7) retain and delete data on their own schedules, described in their policies

Questions asked of a dojo's AI assistant are deleted automatically 90 days after they were asked, together with the assistant's answers. A question it could not answer stays on the dojo's list of unanswered questions until the dojo removes it or its team space is deleted (Section 1).

Parent, guardian and emergency contacts on an athlete's record are kept until the dojo removes them, or the athlete's record or the dojo's team space is deleted. They are the dojo's record, so they stay with the dojo when a parent's account is deleted, or an athlete's account whose record the dojo already held; an athlete record made for the account is deleted with it, and its contacts with it. They are not part of the download an account makes of its own data. A parent, guardian or emergency contact can ask the dojo to see, correct or remove their details. Because these are the dojo's records, it is the dojo that gives access to them, and we pass a request to see them on to the dojo. If the dojo does not correct or remove them, contact us (Section 9): we verify the request and correct or remove the details carrying the phone number or email address you give us on the dojo's records, without being shown those records, and tell the dojo.

Bringing a roster over: while a dojo imports its roster from its previous system, we hold the rows of its file so the dojo can check them. As each student is brought over, everything in that row except the names, email addresses, student numbers, ranks and dates the import read is removed, and a new athlete's parent and emergency contact details move to the athlete's contacts (Section 1). The rows are deleted starting 14 days after the import finishes or is cancelled, so the dojo can read its report and invite each family to connect to its athlete's record in that time; a very large file is deleted over several nights, 500 rows a night. An import left unfinished for 14 days is closed, and its rows are deleted in the same way.

Text messages: what happens to your mobile number, your agreement to receive texts and the texts themselves when you delete your account is in Section 8.

Requests to start a dojo: if you ask to start a dojo on KarateShowCase, we keep what you send — your name, email address, optional phone number and message — while we review it. A request we decline, or whose setup invitation expires unused, is deleted 90 days after it closes, together with its invitation. A request that became a dojo is kept for as long as that dojo exists, as the record of how it was set up (including which version of our terms its owner accepted), and is deleted 90 days after the dojo's team space is permanently purged. Requests we have not yet finished reviewing or setting up are kept until we act on them.

Unsubscribe links: every news-and-offers email a dojo sends ends with a link to unsubscribe, and so do some of its automated emails, such as a birthday card; using any of these links stops that dojo's news and offers, birthday cards included. So that the link in a news-and-offers email works, we keep a record for each person a copy is addressed to, made just before it is sent: a one-way fingerprint of the link, the account and email address the copy is addressed to, the dojo, and which email it is. That record expires 400 days after it was made and is then deleted automatically, or it is deleted sooner, with the account or with the dojo's team space. An automated email's link is kept with the dojo's sent-mail log (below). Each link keeps answering for 30 days after its email was sent, even if the account or the dojo's team space is deleted in that time. For that, we keep the following until 31 days after the email was sent, or was last tried if it could not be sent, and it is then deleted automatically, usually within a day:

• If the account is deleted, we keep, under a one-way fingerprint of the link, the dojo, when the link stops working, and a one-way fingerprint of the email address, never the address itself. The address cannot be read back out of the fingerprint, but the fingerprint can be matched against an address that is known or guessed. If the link is used in that time, we record under the address's fingerprint that it unsubscribed from that dojo, so that it goes on being honoured; the link itself never tells us the address
• If the dojo's team space is deleted, we keep, under a one-way fingerprint of the link, only the dojo's name and when the link stops working, so that the link can say that the dojo no longer sends email through KarateShowCase

What we deliberately retain: platform audit records of privileged actions (which reference accounts by internal ID, not by name), a dojo's own operational records (its sent-mail log and contact-form correspondence, and the parent, guardian and emergency contacts it keeps for its athletes), documents signed for a dojo (above), and in-app notification entries, which expire on their own (read notifications after 90 days, all notifications after one year). When an account is deleted, the automated messages that the dojos it belonged to or coached in sent to it, or to its confirmed email address, are kept only as a record that a message went and how it fared, without the recipient's name, email address or the message's words. For each of those messages we keep a suppression record: a one-way fingerprint of the message and the address. The address cannot be read back out of it, but the fingerprint can be matched against an address that is known or guessed, which is how we recognise that message and never send it to that address again. We keep a suppression record for 400 days for a message tied to a date (such as a reminder or a birthday card), and for as long as the dojo's team space exists for one that could otherwise be sent again at any time (such as a win-back email or the follow-up to a missed trial class). A dojo the account never belonged to or coached in keeps its messages, such as its reply to an enquiry, as its own correspondence. If an address used the unsubscribe link in a dojo's email and has not since turned that dojo's news and offers back on, we keep that address and that fact after the account is deleted, so that it goes on being honoured, until that dojo's team space is deleted. If we recorded that an address could not receive our email, we keep that address and that fact, so that a dojo's team emails and automated emails are not sent to it again, though an invitation to join a dojo still can be. Deletion also cannot reach what has already left the Platform: email delivered to inboxes, texts delivered to phones, alerts posted to a dojo's connected GroupMe group, or data exports you downloaded. A dojo that leaves the Platform can request deletion of its entire team space; we archive it, provide the dojo a complete export, and then permanently purge it, keeping only a minimal record that the deletion happened and, until 31 days after each of its emails was sent, what that email's unsubscribe link needs in order to answer (above).

7. Third-Party Services & Cookies

We use the following services to operate the Platform:

• Google Cloud / Firebase — authentication, database, file storage, and server infrastructure, including Vertex AI, which a dojo's AI assistant uses to match a question to the dojo's own material
• Anthropic — generates the answers of a dojo's AI assistants. Each question, together with the dojo's material relevant to it (for the staff assistant, the dojo records it looked up), is sent to Anthropic's service to produce the answer
• Netlify — website hosting and content delivery (Google's Firebase Hosting serves as a mirror)
• Microsoft Azure Communication Services — delivers all email the Platform sends (verification links, invitations, team email), from our own authenticated domain
• Twilio — delivers the text messages a dojo or KarateShowCase sends, and the texts people send to them. The mobile number each text goes to or comes from, and the text’s words and any pictures, pass through Twilio so that it can be delivered (Section 8)
• Stripe — processes payments where they are enabled: a dojo's subscription to KarateShowCase, and payments families make to their dojo, which go to the dojo's own Stripe account. Card details are entered on Stripe's own pages and never reach KarateShowCase
• Google Fonts — typefaces, loaded from Google's servers
• YouTube — embedded video playback (subject to Google's Privacy Policy)
• GroupMe (Microsoft) — only if your dojo connects its own GroupMe group: the Platform then posts outbound alerts (announcements, event updates) into that group. Nothing is read back from the group, and no member data beyond the alert text ever goes to GroupMe
• Google Analytics — on our public marketing homepage only. Team spaces, member pages, and this page carry no analytics: a dojo's visitors are the dojo's, not ours to measure

Each service has its own privacy policy. Links from the Platform to external sites — for example, our merchandise store, which is operated by Fourthwall — lead to independent sites with their own policies; we send them no data about you.

Cookies: team spaces use only functional cookies and browser storage — your sign-in state, and a short-lived session cookie that authorizes your access to protected images. Our public marketing homepage uses Google Analytics, which sets first-party analytics cookies on that page; team spaces and member pages carry no analytics. We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not sell or share data with advertisers.

8. Text Messages

A dojo that uses KarateShowCase can text its members, parents and guardians from the dojo’s own number. KarateShowCase has its own team space and texts its members there in the same way. A dojo texts a number only to reply when that number has texted it, or when someone has asked in their account to receive its texts at that number. So a text you did not agree to can reach you if someone typed your number, or agreed for it before it was yours: ignore a code, which leads to nothing unless it is entered, and reply STOP to anything else. Everything in this section applies to our texts as it does to a dojo’s.

• How you agree. In your account, by entering your mobile number, ticking the box to receive texts, and entering the code we text to that number, to confirm the number. One more text then confirms that texts are on. If you text a dojo’s number, the dojo can reply to you for 24 hours after your last text; texting it is not an agreement to its other texts
• What the texts are about. A dojo texts about its classes, schedule changes and cancellations, events and tournaments, and your membership, and replies to texts you send it. It may not use texts for offers or other marketing (Terms of Service, Section 8)
• Children. When an athlete has a linked parent or guardian, a dojo does not text a number given for texts in an account linked to that athlete’s record, apart from the automatic answers to keywords such as STOP, START and HELP, and its group texts reach the parent or guardian instead. A number given in an account the dojo has not linked to an athlete’s record is texted as its holder agreed, so a parent can ask the dojo to link their child’s account. Any other number that texts a dojo, a child’s included, can be answered for 24 hours, unless texts to it have been stopped
• How often, and the cost. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply
• Stopping texts. Reply STOP to any text to stop texts from that sender to your number. You receive one text confirming it, and no more from that sender until you text START or UNSTOP from that phone. Nothing on the Platform lets anyone at a dojo or at KarateShowCase lift a STOP you sent; only START or UNSTOP texted from your phone does. You can also turn texts off, and back on, in your account, or ask your dojo to stop texting you, and its staff record that. For help, reply HELP, or contact your dojo or us at info@KarateShowCase.com
• What we keep. The mobile numbers you give for texts; the record of your agreement, meaning the words you agreed to and when and how you agreed; your STOP and START replies and each time you turn texts off or on in your account, with when; and the texts you and the dojo’s staff send each other one to one. A dojo also keeps the words of each group text it sends, without the numbers it went to
• Who sees it. Texts with a dojo are seen by the staff the dojo allows to handle its messages, and our texts by our own staff. Other members never see them, and platform staff do not access a dojo’s texts in the ordinary course of operating the Platform
• Who we share it with. We do not sell, rent or share mobile information, meaning your mobile number and your text-message opt-in and consent, with any third party or affiliate for marketing or promotional purposes. Your number, and the words and any pictures of each text, go to Twilio only so that it can deliver them (Section 7)
• How long we keep it. The number on your account is deleted when you delete your account, and texts sent to it because of your account stop. The record of your agreement, which includes the number, and your STOP and START history are kept after that, for as long as that team space exists: a STOP is kept against the number so that it goes on being honoured, and the record of your agreement shows that texts were sent with your permission. Text conversations are the records of the dojo they are with, or ours for our texts, kept while that team space exists and deleted with it

9. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access — download a copy of your data yourself, any time, from My Account → Your data
• Correct — update your own profile and, for athletes, the personal fields on your athlete record (or ask your dojo administrator for operational fields, such as the parent, guardian and emergency contacts the dojo keeps)
• Delete — delete your account yourself from My Account, immediately; or email us and we will run the same deletion for you after verifying the request
• Restrict — hide your athlete profile from your team's roster, or ask us to limit how your data is used
• Contacts a dojo keeps about you — if a dojo keeps your name and phone number or email address as a parent, guardian or emergency contact (Section 6), ask the dojo to see, correct or remove them; if the dojo does not correct or remove them, email us and, once we have verified the request, we correct or remove them; we pass a request to see them on to the dojo
• Withdraw consent — revoke previously given consent at any time: to stop a dojo's news and offers by email, use the link to unsubscribe at the end of a recent one, or, where your dojo offers it, turn them off in My Account; for texts, reply STOP (Section 8)

For anything you cannot do in the product, contact us at info@KarateShowCase.com.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will post the updated Policy on the Platform and change the "Last Updated" date above, which is the date the current version took effect. If a change is material, we may also let you know on the Platform or by email, at our discretion. Please review this Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Platform after an updated version takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

11. Contact

For questions, concerns, or data requests:

KarateShowCase LLC
Email: info@KarateShowCase.com
Website: www.KarateShowCase.com