11. Where should recruitment intelligence stop before it becomes unjustified player profiling?

Interview objective: Set defensible boundaries around player information and its use.

Put to: Alexander Bielefeld, an NWSLPA or MLSPA representative, and appropriately qualified US privacy counsel.

Why it matters to buyers: FIFPRO’s Charter addresses player access, correction, portability and other data rights. Separately, the FTC’s biometric-information policy statement discusses deceptive claims and potentially unfair collection or use. Neither source supports treating every sporting measurement as the same legal category. (fifpro.org)

A strong answer should cover:

• A data inventory separating public match evidence, private assessments, identifiable tracking, health information and biometric processing.
• Purpose, necessity, provenance and access controls for each category.
• Applicable law, agreements and collective-bargaining provisions, assessed for the actual workflow.
• How a player can challenge inaccurate information where relevant rights or procedures apply.
• Retention and deletion arrangements, including downstream systems and contractors.
• A boundary against unsupported medical, psychological or character conclusions.

Sharp follow-up: If a supplier offers a personality or injury-risk label, what evidence and authority would justify collecting it, sharing it and using it in recruitment?

Request this artefact: A counsel-reviewed data-use register. For an initial supplier trial, the desk recommends excluding medical records, unnecessary sensitive information and unnecessary minors’ data unless a separately approved requirement makes them essential.

This is procurement triage, not a finding that a supplier or club complies with every applicable law.

Proposed expert interview; not yet conducted. No expert quotation is attributed.