Our Commitment to Youth Privacy

Our treatment of youth data is governed by the United States’ Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Together, these two laws contain some of the most rigorous standards for the collection and processing of minor youth data.

It is our policy to gain consent from parents/legal guardians when collecting data on anyone under the age of 18. Youth under the age of 13 are not permitted to create accounts or provide personal data on our Sites. If we learn that we have personal data obtained directly from a child under 13 we will delete that data as soon as possible. If you believe we have collected data on a minor under age 13, please notify us at privacy@firstinspires.org and we will delete that data as soon as possible.​

FIRST and Youth Personal Data​

At FIRST, our practice is always to collect the smallest amount of data possible to manage our programs. This extends to the data we collect on minor students. In order to participate in FIRST, the parents or legal guardians will be asked to supply data for their child like name, address, date of birth, and some optional demographic data that helps us understand who we are serving, how our programs are performing. This data is normally collected online, via the Youth Registration System and our online Consent and Release Form. If you need help with youth registration or the Consent and Release Form, visit the Youth Registration System Overview site or download the Youth Registration System Guide. In rare cases, you may need to complete a paper consent, which can be turned into your coach or your local Program Delivery Partner, who manages FIRST programs in your area.

We use your personal data to communicate with you about FIRST information and related opportunities. We will never attempt to communicate directly with children under the age of 13 and will only communicate with minors ages 13-17 who have created a FIRST Dashboard account with parental approval. Users may opt-out of FIRST emails by using the opt-out feature contained in the email, or by contacting us at privacy@firstinspires.org.​

I want to Create an Account or Register my Child

The FIRST Youth Protection Program

The FIRST Youth Protection Program sets minimum standards recommended for all FIRST activities. Adults working in FIRST programs must be knowledgeable of the standards set by FIRST Youth Protection Program, as well as those set by the school or organization hosting their team. In North America, lead Coaches/Mentors, or other adults regularly working with a FIRST team are required to obtain FIRST Youth Protection Clearance (YPC), before beginning regular involvement with the team. For more in-depth information on the Youth Protection Program, you can download a copy of the FIRST Youth Protection Program Guide.

We encourage anyone participating with FIRST or attending FIRST related activities or events to report concerns to FIRST Headquarters. The FIRST Reporting Portal which provides a confidential platform to report youth protection concerns, medical incidents, or other issues. All reports are reviewed by trained staff and reporters will receive a follow up response if contact information is provided.​

Internet Safety for Children

Need resources to help keep kids safe online? Check out CISA’s Keeping Children Safe Online or the or the European Commission’s Better Internet for Kids.​

On the Frontline of Protecting the Privacy of our Community​

As a FIRST coach or mentor, you are at the heart of our programs, and we depend on your dedication to creating safe and positive STEM experiences for the students on your team. Parents are becoming increasingly mindful of how their children’s data is collected and used. Being aware of how to safely handle youth data is part of our larger commitment to Youth Protection, and we want to do everything we can to make sure you have the tools you need to keep our community safe.

In order to help you navigate the current privacy and data protection landscape, we’ve created some tips in the “Privacy 101 for FIRST Coaches” section below. This information will help you understand some best practices related to things like social media, awards nominations, and using student data and images in presentations and engineering notebooks.

Protecting Personal Data​

Personal data (also known as personally identifiable information, or PII) is one of the most important concepts in privacy and data protection. However, our understanding of personal data must be flexible. That’s because the privacy landscape is always changing, and people who want to cause privacy harm are always looking for new data to exploit, and new ways to link pieces of anonymous data to identify or locate data subjects.

This tip sheet contains a good starter list of personal data. You should protect any files or documents containing these types of data, as they could be misused to cause privacy harm.

It is your responsibility as the coach/mentor to ensure you are keeping your team members personal information private. Do not disclose their personal data, including photos or videos, without the explicit permission from parents/guardians.​

The FIRST Consent and Release Form​

Each FIRST participant – this includes coaches, mentors, students and event volunteers – must have a current season signed FIRST Consent and Release Form on file prior to the first in-person team meeting, or first official event for event volunteers. The easiest way for coaches, mentors and volunteers to complete the Consent and Release Form is to log into or create a FIRST Dashboard account and use the dropdown menu at the top right, by your name, to navigate to Acknowledgment Forms. At the beginning of each FIRST season, usually in May, you will see a link for the current season Consent and Release Form.

There are a couple of ways parents can complete the Youth Registration and/or Consent and Release process. The easiest way for most parents or guardians to register their child with FIRST is to have the parent create a FIRST Dashboard account and then complete the online Consent and Release Form. Once a parent or guardian has created their Dashboard account, they will be able to add their child, sign the electronic Consent and Release Form, and apply to a team under the “Parent/Guardian – Youth” tab on their account page.

You may want to share this Youth Registration System Guide or this registration guide for Mobile Devices with parents to help them navigate the process. The Youth Registration System Overview page also has video guides and detailed instructions for parents, coaches and mentors.

With the approval of your Program Delivery Partner (PDP), you may in some instances collect a paper version of the Consent and Release Form. In this case, please follow the instructions of your PDP for the safe handling of this document, since it contains the personal data of students and parents.

Team Rosters, Contact Information and Communications​

Throughout your team’s FIRST season, you may need to create rosters and contact lists to help you manage your team and help with your participation at FIRST events. If you create lists containing personal data – things like names, addresses, telephone numbers or email addresses – be sure to be careful with these lists, and only share with authorized people. Also, remember to destroy these lists when they are no longer in use. This means shredding or destroying paper documents and deleting electronic files.

Team-Created Material for Judging and Events​

If your team creates materials for judging sessions such as engineering notebooks, award submissions, or other materials, you should always strive to limit the amount of personal data in these documents. Unless there is a compelling reason, you should not include the last names of students or coaches, pictures of students, phone numbers, or email addresses in any team-supplied materials. If you must include personal data in team-created documents, you should retrieve these document when they are no longer needed by judges.

Social Media​

Social media is a great way to share your team’s accomplishments with the FIRST community. However, you should always gain the consent of parents before posting any images of students to social media, and, if you are at a school, you should make sure you are in compliance with your district’s social media and privacy policies. Many FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition teams appoint students to manage their social media accounts. If students are allowed to control your team’s accounts, be sure they are aware of your social media guidelines and be sure a coach or mentor is monitoring their posts regularly.

FIRST Award Nominations

As part of our mission, FIRST seeks to recognize the outstanding achievements of our participants and volunteers. However, nominating others for an award such as Dean's List or the Woodie Flowers Award requires certain care and privacy considerations. As a prerequisite, all award nominees, or the parent/guardian of minor nominees, must have completed a current-season FIRST Consent and Release Form before the submission of any personal data by the person who is nominating them for an award. ​

Privacy Basics for FIRST Volunteers​

As a FIRST event volunteer, we need you to be especially aware of FIRST data protection and privacy policies and best practices. You and event coworkers will be the front-line defense in protecting the personal data and privacy of all event participants. Data protection and privacy best practices are constantly evolving as new threats emerge, and those intent on causing privacy harm think of new ways to try and obtain and exploit personal data. We need you to remain vigilant and help us protect our community.

Protecting Personal Data​

The best way to prevent privacy harm is to safeguard the personal data (also known as personally identifiable information, or PII) of FIRST participants. Personal data is one of the most important concepts in privacy and data protection. However, our understanding of the concept of personal data must always be flexible. That’s because the privacy landscape is always changing, and people who want to cause privacy harm are always looking for new data to exploit, and new ways to link pieces of anonymous data to identify or locate data subjects.

This tip sheet contains a good starter list of personal data. You should protect any files or documents containing these types of data, as they could be misused to ​cause privacy harm.

Personal Data and FIRST Events

As a FIRST event volunteer, it’s possible that you will encounter the personal data of both teams and other volunteers at FIRST events. At many events, Pit Administration may intake paper copies of FIRST Consent and Release forms and team rosters. These Consent and Release forms and rosters should be handled very carefully since they will contain personal data like name, address, phone number and date of birth.

If you are a judge, teams may occasionally supply reference material or engineering notebooks which may contain personal data, and some FIRST awards allow users to upload nominee and submission information in advance of an in‐person event. If you have access to any of this data, it’s critical that you protect the privacy of the team members and share access to this data only when authorized. Please follow the instructions of your Volunteer Coordinator, event manager or Program Delivery Partner to make sure all personal data is handled in accordance with our best practices.

Additional Training​

Depending on your volunteer role, your Volunteer Coordinator may assign you additional data protection and privacy training. This training assignment will appear as a required task on your FIRST Dashboard account.

Sponsor Requests for team data, images and videos.

Under the GDPR, images and video with discernable human subjects are considered personal data. FIRST collects this type of data for its own use for purposes such as marketing, promotional activities and outreach to support the FIRST mission. Under certain circumstances as allowed by the FIRST Privacy Policy, FIRST may share this data with Key Donors and Sponsors so that they may promote FIRST and its Programs. If you are a sponsor and would like to use FIRST images or video for promotional purposes, please visit the FIRST Press Room or contact FIRST Development at development@firstinspires.org. ​

Sponsors may also attend in-person events, and with the permission and the appropriate consent of event managers, coaches, mentors, parents/guardians and participants, collect their own images of FIRST events and teams for their organization’s promotional or informational needs.