This privacy policy explains how Itheko Sport Athletic Club ("Itheko", "the club", "we") collects, uses, and protects your personal information through the PaceHub mobile app and website. We have written this policy to be readable rather than legalistic. If anything is unclear, please contact us using the details at the end of this page.
This policy is governed by the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 ("POPIA") of South Africa.
1. Who we are
Itheko Sport Athletic Club is a community running club based in Cape Town, affiliated with Western Province Athletics. The PaceHub platform is the mobile and web application used by Itheko members for club communication, race results, run scheduling, and member coordination.
The PaceHub platform is developed and operated by Fagmie Davids on behalf of Itheko. For the purposes of POPIA, Itheko is the responsible party for member data, and the platform developer acts as the operator under Itheko's instruction.
2. What information we collect
Information you provide when joining
- Full name (required, used to identify you to other members and on race results)
- Email address (required, used to log in to the app and receive important club communications)
Information you can choose to provide
- Phone number (used for emergency contact during runs and for SMS notifications, if enabled)
- Date of birth (used to determine your age category at race results — this is required by Athletics SA but you can choose to leave it blank)
- Gender (used to display your category at race results)
- ASA licence number (Athletics SA licence, used when entering races)
Information generated through your use of the app
- Pace group membership (assigned by your coach)
- Race results (automatically imported from Western Province Athletics when you race, plus any results manually added by club admins)
- RSVP responses to club events (which runs you said you'd attend)
- Push notification subscription tokens (only if you enable notifications — these allow us to send you alerts but don't identify you to outside parties)
- Login session data (timestamps of when you log in, kept for security purposes)
- IP address (recorded in security logs and deleted after 30 days)
3. How we use your information
We use your information for these specific purposes only:
- Delivering the PaceHub app to you (you can't log in without an account)
- Communicating club news, run schedules, and event announcements
- Coordinating runs and tracking RSVPs
- Recording and displaying your race results and personal bests
- Letting your coach see who's in their pace group
- Letting club admins manage membership and respond to questions
- Investigating security issues if they arise
We do not use your information for marketing, advertising, profiling for advertisers, or selling to third parties. We do not run ads inside the app.
4. Who we share your information with
Inside Itheko
- Other Itheko members can see your name, your pace group, and your race results within the app. They cannot see your email address, phone number, or date of birth.
- Itheko club admins (coaches, secretary, treasurer roles) can see all the information necessary for managing the club, including your contact details.
Outside Itheko
- Western Province Athletics (WPA) and Athletics South Africa (ASA): When you race, your name, ASA licence number, and finishing time are part of the official race records that WPA and ASA maintain. PaceHub doesn't change this — Itheko was already sharing this data with WPA before the app existed. The app simply imports the results back.
- No one else. We do not share your data with advertisers, analytics providers, marketing partners, or data brokers. We don't use Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Sentry, or similar third-party tracking services in the app.
5. Your rights under POPIA
POPIA gives you the following rights regarding your personal information:
- The right to access — you can ask us what information we have about you
- The right to correction — you can ask us to correct anything that's wrong
- The right to deletion — you can ask us to delete your account and personal information
- The right to object — you can withdraw your consent for us to process your data (though this means you can no longer use the app)
- The right to lodge a complaint — if you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa
To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details at the bottom of this page. We aim to respond within 30 days.
6. How long we keep your information
- While you're an active member: we keep your data for as long as you remain a club member.
- If you don't renew your membership: after 12 months of inactivity, we anonymize your personal information (name, email, phone). Your race results remain in our records but are no longer linked to identifying information.
- If you request deletion: we delete your personal information within 30 days. Your race results may be anonymized rather than deleted, since they form part of club historical records and are referenced by other members' shared race entries.
- Login security logs: kept for 30 days, then automatically deleted.
- Backups: our backup copies follow the same retention as primary data — when something is deleted from the active database, it's removed from the next backup cycle within 7 days.
7. How we protect your information
We take reasonable steps to keep your information secure:
- All data transmitted between your device and our servers is encrypted using HTTPS (TLS 1.2 or higher).
- Passwords are hashed using bcrypt before storage — we never store passwords in plain text and we cannot tell you what your password is (only reset it).
- Access to the production database is limited to the platform developer (Fagmie Davids).
- Database files are encrypted at rest.
- Backups are encrypted before being stored.
- The app uses role-based access control: ordinary members can't see other members' contact details, only admins can.
However, no online service can promise absolute security. If we ever discover that member data has been improperly accessed, we will notify affected members and the Information Regulator as required by POPIA.
8. Cookies and tracking
The PaceHub app uses session cookies to keep you logged in. We do not use tracking cookies, advertising cookies, or third-party cookies of any kind. You don't need to accept a cookie consent banner because we don't track you.
9. Children's data
The PaceHub app is intended for Itheko members aged 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 18 through the app. If a junior runner is registered as a club member, their data is managed under the supervision of a parent or guardian who has provided consent.
10. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. Significant changes (like new data being collected or new third parties being involved) will be communicated to members through the app's announcements feature. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page always reflects when the policy was most recently changed.
11. Contact us
If you have questions about this policy, want to access or correct your data, or want to make a request under POPIA:
If you're not satisfied with our response, you can lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa: