Privacy Policy

01Who we are

Catch a Cast is a South African marketplace where event organisers find and book esports casters. For the purposes of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA), we are the responsible party for the personal information described here.

You can reach us about anything on this page at support@catch-a-cast.com. If you would rather talk to a person about a specific booking, the fastest route is usually the message thread on that booking.

02What we collect

We only collect what the platform needs to work. In practice that is:

• Account details - your name, email address and, if you sign in with Google, the basic profile Google returns (name, email, profile picture). We never see your Google password.
• Profile details - everything you choose to publish: display name, photo, bio, location, languages, the games you call, your rates and rate card, availability, social links and broadcast history.
• Booking details - event names, dates, formats, roles, quoted amounts, invoices, deposit percentages and the status of each payment you confirm.
• Invoicing and banking details - if you are a caster who issues invoices: business name, registration and VAT numbers where you supply them, and the bank account you want to be paid into.
• Messages and applications - direct messages, booking chat, casting-call applications, connection requests, reviews and referrals.
• Feedback - if you send a bug report or feature request, the message you write plus the page you were on and your browser details, so we can reproduce the problem.
• Usage information - pages viewed, features used, approximate device and browser information, and server logs that include your IP address.

03Profile view statistics

Casters can see how many people viewed their profile, and organisers can see the same for their own reach. To count a view without building a tracking profile of you, we store a salted, one-way hash of your account id or IP address against that caster and that day. The hash cannot be reversed into an IP address or an account, it is only ever used to avoid counting the same person twice, and it is deleted automatically a short time after the day it belongs to.

Casters see totals and trends. They never see who viewed their profile, unless you contacted them some other way.

04How we use it

We use your information to:

• Run your account, publish your profile and show you in search results and casting calls.
• Create, track and settle bookings, invoices and reviews between organisers and casters.
• Send service notifications - booking requests, messages, invoices, casting calls and review requests.
• Keep the platform safe: preventing spam, abuse, fake profiles and duplicate view counts.
• Understand what is used and what is not, so we can improve it.
• Meet our legal and tax obligations.

Under POPIA we process this information because it is necessary to provide the service you asked for, because you consented (for example, by publishing a profile or opting into a category of email), because we have a legitimate interest in running and securing the platform, or because the law requires it.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it to train advertising profiles.

05What is public, and what is not

Caster profiles are public. They can be opened without an account, they appear in our sitemap, and search engines may index them. That includes your display name, photo, bio, location, languages, games, rates, availability, broadcast history, level, ratings and reviews, and the co-casters you have worked with. Casting calls and their public details work the same way.

These are never public, and are never shown to other users:

• Your email address and phone number.
• Your banking and invoicing details, which are stored where only you and our servers can read them.
• Your direct messages and booking conversations, which only the people in the thread can read.
• Your notification and email preferences.

When you book a caster, or a caster invoices you, the two of you necessarily see each other's contact and payment details for that booking. Treat those as you would any other business contact.

06Payments

Payments happen directly between the organiser and the caster, normally by EFT against the invoice the caster issues on the booking. Catch a Cast does not hold your money, does not take a commission, and never asks for or stores card numbers.

What we do store is the paperwork around it: the invoice, the amounts, the caster's bank details on their own invoices, and the payment milestones each side confirms. Your bank sees the transfer; we only see that someone marked it as paid.

07Who else sees it

We share personal information only with the service providers that make the platform run:

• Google Firebase (authentication, database and file storage) - where your account and content live.
• Our hosting provider - serves the site and keeps short-lived request logs.
• Our email provider - delivers notification emails to your inbox.

These providers act on our instructions and are not allowed to use your information for their own purposes. Some of them process data outside South Africa, which POPIA permits where the receiving country or the provider's contractual commitments offer comparable protection.

Beyond that, we will only disclose personal information if the law requires it, to establish or defend a legal claim, to protect someone's safety, or if you ask us to.

08Emails and notifications

Notifications appear in your inbox on the site, and we can email you about the things that need your attention. Email is grouped into categories - bookings and invoices, messages, casting calls and reviews - and you can switch any category off, or turn email off entirely, in your profile settings.

A small number of messages are not optional while your account is open, because they are part of the service: security notices, and anything we are legally required to send you.

09Cookies and local storage

We keep this deliberately boring. The only things stored in your browser are:

• Sign-in tokens set by Firebase Authentication, so you stay signed in between visits.
• Small preference values that remember things like filters you have chosen.

We do not use advertising cookies, third-party trackers or cross-site pixels. Clearing your browser storage signs you out and forgets those preferences; nothing else is lost.

10How long we keep it

We keep your account and profile for as long as your account is open. Booking records, invoices and reviews are kept for as long as we need them to settle disputes and meet tax and record-keeping obligations - normally five years from the end of the tax year they fall in. Profile-view keys expire automatically within days. Server logs are kept for a short period for security and debugging.

You can delete your account yourself, at any time, from the bottom of your profile settings. That removes your profile, photos, messages, connections, follows, rosters, casting calls, applications and notifications. Content that other people depend on - a review you left, or a completed booking on someone else's record - stays, because it is their history too.

Deletion is permanent and is not reversible. If you have a booking still in progress we will ask you to settle or cancel it first, so the other party is not left stranded.

11Your rights

Under POPIA you have the right to:

• Ask what personal information we hold about you and get a copy of it.
• Correct anything inaccurate - most of it you can edit yourself on your profile.
• Delete your account and information - do it yourself from your profile settings, subject to the retention periods above.
• Object to processing that relies on our legitimate interests, and withdraw any consent you gave.
• Opt out of marketing or notification email at any time.

Email support@catch-a-cast.com and we will respond within a reasonable time, and within any period the law requires. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at inforegulator.org.za.

12Security

Traffic is encrypted in transit. Access to your data is enforced by database security rules, not just by the screens you see: contact details, banking details and private messages are readable only by the accounts entitled to them, and sensitive writes go through our servers rather than the browser.

No system is perfectly secure. Use a strong, unique password, and tell us at support@catch-a-cast.com straight away if you think someone else has access to your account.

13Children

You must be 18 or older to create an account. If you are under 18 and want to cast, a parent or guardian must hold the account and contract on your behalf. If we learn that we hold a child's information without that consent, we will delete it.

14Changes to this policy

We update this policy as the platform changes. The date at the top always reflects the current version, and if a change materially affects how we handle your information we will tell you in-app or by email before it takes effect. Continuing to use Catch a Cast after that means you accept the updated policy.