SPARK Midwest app — Privacy Policy

This policy covers the SPARK Midwest apps for iOS and Android, and the former web app at app.sparkmidwest.org. The apps are built and published by Basha Systems LLC on behalf of SPARK Midwest, which organizes the tournament and owns the event information the apps display.

The short version: there is no account, and we do not want your personal information. You can use the whole app without signing in, without giving us a name, and without giving us an email address. The app sends nothing about you while alerts are off. On iPhone, alerts are turned on when you tap Continue on the screen the app shows the first time you open it; on Android, only if you tap Allow on that screen. On either, you can also turn them on later in the app. You can turn alerts off at any time in the app, and what we stored is deleted, apart from server logs that expire on their own within 30 days.

What the app collects

While alerts are off

Nothing is sent to us about you. The teams you follow and your alert settings are stored only on your own device and are never transmitted. We do not add any analytics of our own, we do not use advertising networks or show targeted advertising, we do not track you across apps or websites, and we never ask for your location. The Bazaar may show deals from SPARK vendors who pay SPARK to promote them; they are labelled "Sponsored", chosen by SPARK staff and the same for everyone, and which deals you have seen is remembered only on your own device and never sent to us or to the vendor. Google's Firebase libraries, which the app uses to read the schedule and deliver alerts, may collect basic diagnostic data about how those services perform.

While alerts are on

To send you a notification we have to know which device to send it to, and which teams you care about. While alerts are on, the app sends us:

The app also checks our own server for fixes to its code; that check sends the app's version and platform and a random number for this copy of the app, and nothing about you.

That is the complete list, apart from the standard server logs described below. We do not receive your name, email, phone number, contacts, photos, location, or any advertising identifier.

If a notification to your device fails, we keep the error code Google or Apple returned, until the record is deleted.

How alerts get turned on. The first time you open the app, it shows one screen about announcements and alerts. On iPhone, tapping Continue on that screen turns alerts on, and iPhone then asks whether SPARK may send you notifications. On Android, alerts are turned on only if you tap Allow; Not now leaves them off. You can also turn alerts on or off later in the app.

If your phone does not allow SPARK's notifications (for example, you choose Don't Allow when iPhone asks), alerts stay on in the app and the details above are still sent, marked to say that this device cannot show alerts, so no notification is sent to it. Until your phone allows SPARK's notifications, the app requests no notification token and makes no push registration with Apple or Google. The details are kept until you turn alerts off in the app, which deletes them, or until they expire as described below.

When it is deleted

• As soon as you turn alerts off. The app tells us to remove the record, and it is deleted.
• Automatically, 60 days after you last open the app. If you stop using it, the record expires on its own.
• When the event's data is purged after the tournament.

You do not need to contact anyone to do any of this. Turning alerts off is enough.

Recent alerts

Announcements sent through the app contain only the public message, its link and which teams or sections it was for. They do not contain anything about your device. Each announcement is kept in the app's list of recent alerts for seven days, so you can read one you missed. When SPARK Midwest also posts an announcement to the app's public announcements list, that copy stays there until SPARK Midwest withdraws it or until the tournament's data clean-up on 1 December 2026, whichever comes first. A copy saved on your phone may remain until the app next refreshes.

Server logs

Our hosting provider, Google Cloud, keeps standard request logs, which include the IP address of a phone each time it registers for alerts or turns them off, for up to 30 days for security and operations. Turning alerts off does not remove these logs; they expire on their own within 30 days.

How we protect it

• Encrypted connections. Everything the app sends or receives, including the alert details above, travels over encrypted HTTPS connections.
• Device records are closed to everyone but our server. The record kept while alerts are on cannot be read or changed by the app, by anyone on the internet, or by SPARK Midwest staff. Only our own server code reads it, to send notifications, and deletes it.
• Only authorized staff can change the event. Schedules, scores, rosters, team photographs and announcements can be changed only by SPARK Midwest staff who sign in to the organizers' site, and each person can change only what their role allows. Scorekeepers' and announcers' access is set to end shortly after the tournament.
• Encrypted storage. Information is stored on Google Cloud, which encrypts stored data.
• Signed app updates. Fixes to the app's code are signed, and the app checks the signature before it uses one.

Service providers

We do not sell or share your information with anyone, for any purpose.

Software we use

The app is built with open-source software. The libraries it includes, and their licenses, are listed on a separate page.

Open-source licenses

Players, rosters and children

This app is not directed to children under 13. It is a schedule-and-scores app for families and spectators, and it asks no one for personal information.

Team pages can show a roster. When they do, a player appears as a first name and jersey number only — no surname, no age, no date of birth, no photograph of an individual player, and no contact details. That information comes from the organizing body as part of tournament registration. It is published only when a SPARK Midwest organizer approves it: usually after the team's coach has checked it and sent it in, and otherwise (for example, for a team whose coach has not responded) from the registration itself. Team photographs, where the team or SPARK Midwest provides one, show the team, and a SPARK Midwest organizer approves each one before it appears.

Quran results and the live 'now reciting' card show the competitor's organization. SPARK Midwest may choose to show a first name, or a first name and last initial. No other personal details are shown.

Registration itself — including anything a parent or coach provides about a player — happens on sparkmidwest.org and is governed by SPARK Midwest, not by this app. The app never asks anyone to register and never collects registration information.

Rosters and team photographs are removed at the tournament's data clean-up. On 1 December 2026, every roster (first names and jersey numbers) and every team photograph from the 2026 tournament is removed from the app and deleted; backup copies expire on their own within 14 days after that. SPARK Midwest can instead choose to keep them in the app as part of the tournament's record; if it does, this page will say so before 1 December 2026. Either way, teams, game scores, standings and results stay as the tournament's record.

At any time, a parent or guardian can ask for a player's first name to be taken off a roster, or for a team photograph to be taken out of the app, by writing to info@sparkmidwest.org with the team's name. A first name is removed from the app as soon as a SPARK Midwest organizer hides the player. A team photograph is removed from the app, and its file deleted, as soon as an organizer removes it. A copy saved on a phone may remain until the app next refreshes.

Your choices

• Alerts: turn them on or off at any time in the app. On iPhone, the first screen's Continue button turns them on, as described above. Turning them off deletes what we stored, apart from the server logs described above.
• Notifications at the system level: you can also turn them off in your phone's own Settings. That stops notifications from being shown, but it does not turn alerts off in the app or delete what we store; turning alerts off in the app does.
• Everything else: there is nothing else to opt out of. Apart from the basic diagnostic data described above, nothing is collected while alerts are off.

Requests and questions

To ask what we hold about a device, to have it deleted, or to raise a question about this policy, contact kareem@bashasystems.com.

Because the app has no accounts, we usually cannot connect a request to a particular device. The fastest and most complete way to delete what we hold is to turn alerts off in the app.

Where information is held

Tournament data and device records are stored on Google Cloud infrastructure in the United States. The apps are distributed in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top of this page changes with it, and the current version is always the one published here.