FIFA and FIFPRO develop standards on management of personal player performance data

Since the beginning of data collection in professional football, football stakeholders have taken considerable steps to collect not only more data, but evermore sensitive personal data related to players’ health and performance. Because of this development, a possibly large amount of personal data will be available at future competitions. As a consequence, and in relation to FIFA competitions, FIFA and FIFPRO have agreed to develop a data protection framework based on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Swiss Law to provide safeguards and active measures for the collection, protection and use of player data.

For that reason, FIFA and FIFPRO are committed to developing principles for the collection and use of personal player-performance data. This will include:

• the establishment of a standard to be applied when processing personal data;

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• the provision of preventive safeguards against the infringement of personality and privacy rights through the inappropriate processing of personal data;

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• a charter on players’ rights which will set out a list of players’ rights, to be read and applied in line with the GDPR and associated with the processing of their data.

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Additional guidelines and best practices for the processing of personal player-performance data will ensure the application of data protection principles to football and provide guidelines for football stakeholders and third-party providers when collecting and processing personal player-performance data. Both FIFA and FIFPRO are committed to ensuring that the game and players benefit from the continuous development of football technology with the best interest to serve football, players and the game.

The described measures will be developed over the course of the coming months.