Last updated: 18 July 2026.
The short version: your data lives in your own Google account. We run no server that stores it, and we keep no copy. This page spells out exactly what the playing. website (playing.football) and app (app.playing.football) touch.
the app: your Google account is the database
When you use the app, everything you create is stored in your own Google account, owned by you:
- Your journal — check-ins, reflections, goals — lives in Google Sheets in your Drive.
- Voice notes are recorded to files in your Drive.
- Your training schedule lives in a Google Calendar you own.
- Sharing is yours to control. If you invite a guardian or a coach, the app uses Google’s own sharing to give them access to only what you choose to share. Nothing is shared without your action.
The app runs entirely in your browser. It reads and writes your data using permissions you grant at sign-in; that data travels between your browser and Google — it is never sent to us. We have no database, no copies, no analytics on your content.
sign-in
You sign in with Google. The app sees your email address, which it uses only to work out your role (athlete, guardian, or coach) in the space you’re part of. Your sign-in token stays in your browser. You can revoke the app’s access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
the voice
Timers and guided routines can speak their steps aloud. To make that audio, the text of the spoken line (a routine cue like “gastroc stretch — left”, or a guided step — in the app this can include the short focus line you wrote) is sent to our voice service, which uses Google Cloud Text-to-Speech to synthesize it. The resulting audio is cached so the same phrase isn’t synthesized twice. No name, email, or account information is attached to these requests, and the text is not stored anywhere except as that cached audio.
ai (optional)
The app can write a short look-back over your trail if you ask for one. It’s optional — there’s an off switch in settings — and nothing is ever generated without your tap. When you do tap it, your recent entries (and your previous look-backs, so each builds on the last) are sent to our service, passed to Google’s Gemini model to write the reflection, and the result is saved to your trail — in your own Google account, yours like everything else there, where you can delete it like any entry. We store none of it: there is no database of ours. If you never tap it, nothing is ever sent.
When ai is on, a voice note is also transcribed the same way: the recording passes through our service to Gemini once, and the transcript — your words, verbatim — is written into your own sheet next to the note. The audio itself stays in your Drive. With ai off, voice notes save as audio only and nothing is sent.
The people you’ve shared with get the same kind of optional tools, over only what you shared: a coach can ask ai to gather your shared notes into a short catch-up, or to translate a shared note or a coach’s note into the reader’s language. These run the same way — through our service to Gemini, shown on screen, stored nowhere — and they only ever see what had already been shared by your own action. Your private entries are never available to them.
Google user data
The app uses Google’s Calendar, Sheets, and Drive APIs solely to provide the features described above, inside your own Google account. playing.’s use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
the website
playing.football is a static site hosted on Cloudflare, which keeps standard, short-lived server logs (IP addresses, requests) to run the service. We use Cloudflare’s cookieless, aggregate web analytics (page counts — no cookies, no cross-site tracking, no individual profiles) and nothing else: no ads, no tracking pixels, no marketing cookies. Your browser’s local storage is used only for small preferences (for example, whether the timer’s voice is on).
The “join the queue” form is a Google Form; what you submit there is stored in our Google Forms account and used only to contact you about the pilot.
young athletes
playing. is built for young athletes, and it is designed to be used with a guardian involved: guardians are invited into the athlete’s space, sharing is athlete-controlled and visible, and there are no public profiles, no rankings, and no messages from strangers. If you are under the age of digital consent in your country, use playing. with your guardian’s agreement.
your rights
Because your data sits in your own Google account, your rights work directly: delete a file, entry, or calendar there (or from inside the app) and it is gone — there is no copy with us to chase. Leave whenever you like; everything stays with you.
changes and contact
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and material changes will be noted plainly. Questions: hello@playing.football.