1. Who we are
Matwise (matwise.app) is run by Ellis Waterhouse, based in the United Kingdom ("Matwise", "we", "us"). We are the controller of your personal data: we decide how and why it is used. You can contact us about anything in this policy at ellis@matwise.app.
2. The short version
- We collect what you give us (your profile, your game, questions, plans, comps, matches) and the stills taken from footage you choose to analyse.
- We use it to run Matwise and to make your coaching fit your game. We don't sell it, and we don't use it for advertising.
- Your AI coach runs on Google's Gemini on a paid plan, under terms that don't let Google use your data to train its models.
- Your videos stay on your phone. Matwise keeps still frames for 7 days so you can re-run an analysis, then deletes them.
- Our database is in the EU (Ireland). Some providers we use are in the US, with legal safeguards in place.
- You can see, correct, download or delete your data at any time. Email us and we'll do it within one month, usually much sooner.
3. What we collect
Information you give us
| What | Examples |
|---|---|
| Account | Your email address and password (stored in scrambled, hashed form we can't read). If you log in with Google: your name, email and profile picture from Google. |
| Athlete profile | Belt and stripes, when you started training, your gym, division (male/female), date of birth, weight, gi/no-gi, whether you compete, rulesets and style. |
| Your game | Your answers about how you play (guard, passing, submissions, where you get stuck, goals) and anything else you tell your coach. |
| Coaching | Questions you ask, the answers and videos your coach gives you, follow-up conversations, and notes your coach remembers about your game (you can see and delete these on your profile). |
| Training records | Techniques you're working on, saved videos, game plans, competitions and checklists, and matches you log (results, opponents' names or teams if you add them, notes and tagged moments). |
| Video analysis | Still frames taken from footage you choose to analyse, who's who in it (where you tapped), the rules and result you tell us, the analysis itself, and any corrections or answers you give the coach. See Your footage. |
| Early-access requests | Your first name, email, belt and gym when you ask for an invite. |
| Messages to us | Anything you send us by email. |
Information collected automatically
- Usage counts: how many AI requests and video analyses you've made in the last 24 hours, so we can apply fair-use limits while Matwise is free.
- Technical data: your IP address, browser and device type, and the pages you request, which our hosting provider records in short-lived server logs to keep the service running and secure.
- Rough location: when you search for your gym, we use the approximate area your connection comes from (city level, worked out by our hosting provider from your IP address) to show nearby gyms first. We don't store it.
We don't use advertising trackers, we don't build advertising profiles and we don't buy data about you from anyone.
4. How we use it, and our legal bases
The law requires a "legal basis" for each use of personal data. Ours are:
| Why we use it | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Creating and running your account, and providing the coach, techniques, game plans, comps, match log and video analysis you ask for | Contract: it's needed to provide the service you signed up for |
| Making answers fit you: giving the AI your profile, game, focus competition and remembered notes with each request | Contract |
| Fair-use limits, preventing abuse, keeping Matwise secure and fixing problems | Legitimate interests: keeping the service safe and affordable while it's free |
| Improving how Matwise reads matches and answers questions, using your corrections and feedback (text, not footage) | Legitimate interests: making the coach more accurate for everyone. You can object at any time. |
| Handling your early-access request and sending your invite and "you're on the list" email | Legitimate interests: you asked us to |
| Account emails (invites, password resets, security codes) | Contract |
| Any health details you choose to share (for example an injury) | Your explicit consent, given by choosing to share them. See section 7. |
| Keeping records the law requires and responding to legal requests | Legal obligation |
5. How the AI coach uses your data
- When you ask a question, build a plan, review a match or analyse a video, we send the relevant details (your question, your profile and game summary, your focus competition, and for video analysis the still frames) to Google's Gemini API to generate the answer.
- We use Gemini on a paid plan. Under Google's terms for paid use, Google doesn't use your prompts or the responses to train or improve its products. Google may keep them for a limited time to detect abuse, as its terms describe.
- To back up its advice, the coach searches YouTube for instructionals and matches. These searches are about techniques, not about you, and we don't send YouTube your name or email.
- Notes your coach makes while watching public YouTube videos (the moment, the timestamp, the situation it was watched for) go into a shared Matwise library, without your name, so everyone gets faster, better-backed answers.
- Your coach keeps a few short notes about your game (what you're working on, struggles, strengths, goals) so its advice builds over time. You can read and delete every one on your profile under "What your coach remembers".
- No decisions with legal or similarly significant effects are made about you automatically. The coach gives training advice; it doesn't decide anything about your rights, money or access to services. AI can get things wrong: always check its advice with your coach and train safely (see our terms).
6. Your footage
- Your video never leaves your phone. When you analyse a video, your phone takes still frames from it (about one or two per second) and uploads only those frames, to private storage only you and the analysis can access.
- The frames are sent to Gemini to read the match, as described above. We keep them for 7 days so you can correct and re-run the analysis, then delete them automatically. Deleting the analysis deletes its frames straight away.
- Up to three single frames are saved to show you "quick check" questions about moments the coach wasn't sure of. They're deleted with the other frames, after 7 days or when you delete the analysis. The written analysis is kept until you delete it.
- Analyses created before 9 October 2026 uploaded the whole video to Google's Gemini file storage, which deletes files automatically after 48 hours.
- We don't use footage for facial recognition or to identify anyone. You tell us who's who by tapping on a frame.
- Other people in your footage. Your training partners, opponents, referees and spectators may appear. Only upload footage you have the right to use, for example your own matches or footage that's publicly available, like a scouting video. Opponents' names are only stored if you type them. If you appear in someone's footage and want it removed, email us and we'll delete it.
- We won't use your frames to train an AI model without asking you first.
7. Health and other sensitive details
We don't ask for health information. Your weight is used only to show your competition weight class, and we don't give weight-cutting advice. If you choose to tell your coach about an injury or a medical condition, for example "I'm coming back from a knee injury", it's treated as health data. It's used only to tailor your coaching, on the basis of your explicit consent, given by choosing to share it. You can remove it at any time by deleting the question or the remembered note, or by asking us. Please don't share more than you need to.
8. Who we share it with
We never sell your data. We share it only with the providers that run Matwise for us ("processors"). They may only use it to provide their service to us, under contracts that require them to protect it.
| Provider | What they do for us | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Accounts and login, our database, and private storage for video frames | EU (Ireland) |
| Google (Gemini API) | The AI that writes coaching answers and reads footage frames | US and other Google locations |
| Google (YouTube Data API, Places API) | Finding videos; finding gyms when you search for yours | US |
| Google (Sign in with Google) | Logging in, if you choose it | US |
| Vercel | Hosting the website and app | Global network, US company |
| Resend | Sending account emails and the early-access email | US |
| Google Workspace | Our email inbox, if you email us | US and other Google locations |
Shared within Matwise: gym names and addresses you add join a shared gym list so other athletes can find the same gym (who added it isn't shown). Nothing else from your account is visible to other users.
Other sites: competition listings come from IBJJF and Smoothcomp's public calendars. We don't send them anything about you. Links to YouTube, BJJ Fanatics and other sites take you to services with their own privacy policies.
We may share data if the law requires it, to protect the safety of people, or as part of a sale or reorganisation of Matwise. In that case we'll tell you, and this policy will continue to protect your data.
9. International transfers
Some providers above are based in, or may access data from, the United States and other countries outside the UK and EU. When your data leaves the UK, it's protected by a recognised safeguard: the UK–US "data bridge" (for providers certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension), adequacy regulations, or standard contractual clauses with the UK Addendum. You can ask us for details.
10. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Your account, profile and everything you create | Until you delete it or your account. Deleted from our live systems within 30 days of your request. |
| Video frames (including quick-check pictures) | 7 days, deleted by a daily automatic clean-up, or sooner if you delete the analysis |
| Whole videos (older analyses only) | 48 hours at Google, then deleted automatically |
| Usage counts for fair-use limits | While your account exists. Only the last 24 hours count. |
| Early-access requests | Until you're invited and have set up your account, or you ask us to remove you |
| Server logs | A short period set by our hosting provider, typically days to weeks |
| Shared library notes about public videos | Kept, without any link to you once your account is deleted |
| Emails with us | As long as needed to deal with your message, and up to 2 years |
Backups made by our database provider may hold deleted data for a short time until they're overwritten.
11. Your rights
You have the right to:
- Access: get a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Correct: fix anything wrong. You can edit most of it yourself on your profile.
- Delete: ask us to erase your data (the "right to be forgotten").
- Restrict: ask us to pause using your data while a concern is sorted out.
- Portability: receive your data in a common, machine-readable format, such as JSON.
- Object: object to uses based on legitimate interests, such as using your corrections to improve the coach.
- Withdraw consent: wherever we rely on consent, withdraw it at any time.
- Complain: to the Information Commissioner's Office (see section 18).
To use any of these rights, email ellis@matwise.app from the address on your account. It's free. We'll reply within one month, and may ask you to confirm your identity first.
12. Deleting your account
Email ellis@matwise.app with the subject "Delete my Matwise account", from the address you log in with. We'll delete your account and everything linked to it: your profile, questions and answers, remembered notes, techniques, plans, comps, matches, video analyses and frames. We'll confirm when it's done. You can also delete individual questions, notes, analyses, plans, comps and matches yourself in the app at any time.
13. Cookies and local storage
Matwise only uses what it needs to work:
- Login cookies (set by our login provider, Supabase) keep you signed in. They're strictly necessary, so the law doesn't require us to ask first.
- App files on your device: when you add Matwise to your home screen, your browser stores parts of the app so it opens quickly.
We don't use advertising or analytics cookies. If that ever changes, we'll ask for your consent first and update this policy.
14. Emails
We send emails you need: your invite, password resets, login links, security codes and your "you're on the list" confirmation. We won't send marketing emails or newsletters unless you've agreed to receive them, and every one will include a way to unsubscribe.
15. Children and young athletes
Matwise isn't for children under 13. If you're between 13 and 17, you need a parent or guardian's permission to use Matwise, and we recommend they look at this policy with you. The kids belt options exist so that teenage athletes on youth belts can record their rank. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal data, email us and we'll delete it.
16. Security
- All connections to Matwise are encrypted (HTTPS).
- Database rules mean each athlete can only ever read their own records. Video frames sit in private storage.
- Passwords are stored hashed by our login provider. Nobody at Matwise can see them.
- Secret keys stay on our servers, never in the app on your phone.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts your rights at risk, we'll tell you and the ICO as the law requires, normally within 72 hours of finding out.
17. Changes to this policy
We'll update this policy when Matwise changes, for example when we add a feature or a provider. The date at the top shows the latest version. If a change is significant, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.
18. Contact and complaints
Email ellis@matwise.app with any question or concern. We'd like the chance to put things right. You also have the right to complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO): at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by phone on 0303 123 1113. If you live in the EU, you can also contact your local data protection authority.