On-line entry data for races

wextipp

As a road race organizer I have used the services of runireland and Active for on-line entry. They are both great services and good value. When I first used them and I downloaded the entry information from the Athletes I was a bit shocked at the amount of information I was sent. All I required was the athletes age, name, club and tee-shirt size. Instead I get DOB, address, phone numbers etc. In my opinion that is just too much information. It's a lot of information to give to someone you know nothing about. Especially when identity theft is such a problem. Am I being over cautious.

Timmaay

Hmm, I'm a RD also, but I'll admit I've never used the online registration for either RunIreland or Active, I usually do it directly through the race website, so would be getting most of this information directly anyways. What always needs to be done is have a terms and conditions box that the runners need to tick, and within the terms and conditions clearly state that the runners are ok with giving their information to the RD, but that the RD will also only strictly use any of their information for necessary race business, and that they wont sell/give away the information to 3rd partys who might spam the hell out of them!

In terms of the runners phone/address, there would be times that the RD does need to get in contact with a competitor, or say post out a a prize to them etc.

wextipp

I suppose as an RD I would like to specify the information I get. I would just like to get Name, age, email and phone. I don't need the date of birth and address. It's too much info to have on a large number of people and even though I may agree not to mis-use the data who knows how secure my system is and who else has access to my computer equipment.

ecoli

I would imagine you need this info for the simple reason if anything happens to an athlete in a race you have contact details for next of kin etc and if you cant get through via a contact number (or they gave a mobile number) you have an address as the next port of call

However I know your concern I have had my details passed from one Race to another RD twice (same race gave the details both times) and since have contacted them and taken the matter further to the point where it has been stopped

Timmaay

I was pricing up chip timing companies for a race few years back, one of them (who I don't know if they still exist now) offered me a database of thousands of Irish runners, ie any of the runners that that ran in races organisated by them! They told me straight out that I could use it to send them all emails about myown race! Needless to say, I didn't do business with them, whatever about the free promotion that I could have got through spamming people, I sure as hell didn't want him passing details of runners from my race on!

wextipp

ecoli wrote: »

I would imagine you need this info for the simple reason if anything happens to an athlete in a race you have contact details for next of kin etc and if you cant get through via a contact number (or they gave a mobile number) you have an address as the next port of call

That's a fair point. However in the data I got it only has the contact details of person themselves not a number to contact in case of emergency. When I take entries on the day I usually only ask for an email address or phone number. If I need to post them something I then contact them for their address. At the moment I have hundreds of peoples details in a spreadseet but I would never pass that on to another person.