PVS Results files

[Anonymous]

The minutes from the August BOD meeting (PVS) has a report regarding the decision not to post the back up file any more because of concerns over the PII of swimmers contained in it. I’m assuming this is in reference to the actual DOBs of swimmers since the names and ages are contained in the results PDF that is still being posted. There is also reference to the author of the report “hearing” that USAS was discussing a policy change that would require LSCs to not post the results and back up file. It does not appear that this rule is actually in effect, just that this person from PVS “heard” it was being discussed.

[Anonymous]

Maryland Swimming definitely hasn't heard of this unverified new rule. https://www.gomotionapp.com/team/md/page/system/res/210812

[Anonymous]

So bottom line is there is no USA Swimming policy (yet) and PVS BOD voted to preemptively implement a change they see coming. The proposal in the PVS BOD minutes also indicates, "Results files would still be available to club leaders directly from the meet hosts."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So bottom line is there is no USA Swimming policy (yet) and PVS BOD voted to preemptively implement a change they see coming. The proposal in the PVS BOD minutes also indicates, "Results files would still be available to club leaders directly from the meet hosts."

That seems to be the case. I find it hard to believe that USAS would pass a rule prohibiting even the results from being posted though since the information in the PDF results are also publicly available via Meet Mobile. It seems like maybe the easier fix (and I am not tech savvy) is to make it so the meet file doesn’t contain actual dates of birth, just age as of the 1st day of the meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So bottom line is there is no USA Swimming policy (yet) and PVS BOD voted to preemptively implement a change they see coming. The proposal in the PVS BOD minutes also indicates, "Results files would still be available to club leaders directly from the meet hosts."

That seems to be the case. I find it hard to believe that USAS would pass a rule prohibiting even the results from being posted though since the information in the PDF results are also publicly available via Meet Mobile. It seems like maybe the easier fix (and I am not tech savvy) is to make it so the meet file doesn’t contain actual dates of birth, just age as of the 1st day of the meet.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have been concerns about the privacy of minors online (names, birthdates, locations, affiliations, etc.). True, there are reasons why the way the sport's data works doesn't help with that, but the spirit of the concern has led to some organizations and sites not posting data publicly (even though it can generally be found elsewhere anyway).

I'm not sure that PVS isn't posting, though (genuinely don't know and haven't heard). Often meet results are extremely late, which is always my first guess.

Do the results zip files contain birth dates?

Yes.

It is a simple button click to not release the DOBs in the hy-tek files. That would be the only privacy concern. Age and swimmers names are published in heat sheets, psych sheets, pdf result files, etc that are available everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maryland Swimming definitely hasn't heard of this unverified new rule. https://www.gomotionapp.com/team/md/page/system/res/210812

That is because there is no "No rule" concerning this. We live in an LSC and are very close to several board members and coaches and they have heard nothing concerning this.

Without access to the hy-tek result files, 3rd party developers would be stifled and tools that are available and could be available in the future, by new developers in this space will not exist. Why would a sport or any organization try to suppress innovation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maryland Swimming definitely hasn't heard of this unverified new rule. https://www.gomotionapp.com/team/md/page/system/res/210812

Without access to the hy-tek result files, 3rd party developers would be stifled and tools that are available and could be available in the future, by new developers in this space will not exist. Why would a sport or any organization try to suppress innovation?

I completely agree. What truly instigated this situation? Was it an incident involving sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) potentially contained in ZIP files? Or is this move a bureaucratic measure to protect specific interests, perhaps those of Meet-mobile and Hytek? Does the company behind Hytek and Meet-mobile hold a relevant patent that factors into this? Regardless, I maintain that real-time results, when provided by third-party websites, offer significant ease and simplicity for users.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimstandards and Swimmetry seem to be updated now as well, including the meet in Charlottesville that some PVS teams went to this past weekend.

Swimcloud is not. Have not checked myswimiow

MySwimIO is going to be useless now that PV and VSI are not supplying the meet files. I really like it too; such a shame.

Swimmcloud only takes the meet files too. So not sure what they are going to do.

I do not believe this is a rule change either.

It can’t be USA swimming rule change because most of the other LSCs are still providing the meet files.

Because it isn't a USA Swimming rule change.

I am the owner and developer of MySwimIO, and this looks purely like an attempt to favor one third party tool over another. This is all emanating from the DC area where the author and owner of swimstandards is located. They continue to get all the meet results files from Virginia, not surprisingly. The excuse of privacy is invalid, because as it has been pointed out by many to the VA board, it is easy to generate the hy-tek result files without the date of births. Some LSCs do that already. So that is NOT an issue, but they continue to use it as an excuse.

The second reason they said is because it no longer needs to be posted in one central location because the meet hosts send them to the coaches directly. How is that more efficient than one central location for coaches and any third party to look? How many emails do coaches and meet hosts get asking for the files, because they are not posted in one central location? There are dozens of tools out there in development and going in this direction stifles any innovation from those developers and anyone else interested in creating their own tool. It is not just swimstandards and myswimio.

Why would an LSC prevent innovation? Do they want parents to go back to creating and maintaining spreadsheets for their kids? Do they want to coaches to have to go back to manually updating spreadsheets and word documents, etc to track their kids times, event progress, seasonal changes, etc?

You, as members of PV and VA, need to stand up to your boards and demand they start publishing the results, and do it without DOBs if that is a real concern. Get your coaches and team officials involved. They should represent you, not their own self-interests or a third party developer within their LSC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimstandards and Swimmetry seem to be updated now as well, including the meet in Charlottesville that some PVS teams went to this past weekend.

Swimcloud is not. Have not checked myswimiow

MySwimIO is going to be useless now that PV and VSI are not supplying the meet files. I really like it too; such a shame.

Swimmcloud only takes the meet files too. So not sure what they are going to do.

I do not believe this is a rule change either.

It can’t be USA swimming rule change because most of the other LSCs are still providing the meet files.

Because it isn't a USA Swimming rule change.

I am the owner and developer of MySwimIO, and this looks purely like an attempt to favor one third party tool over another. This is all emanating from the DC area where the author and owner of swimstandards is located. They continue to get all the meet results files from Virginia, not surprisingly. The excuse of privacy is invalid, because as it has been pointed out by many to the VA board, it is easy to generate the hy-tek result files without the date of births. Some LSCs do that already. So that is NOT an issue, but they continue to use it as an excuse.

The second reason they said is because it no longer needs to be posted in one central location because the meet hosts send them to the coaches directly. How is that more efficient than one central location for coaches and any third party to look? How many emails do coaches and meet hosts get asking for the files, because they are not posted in one central location? There are dozens of tools out there in development and going in this direction stifles any innovation from those developers and anyone else interested in creating their own tool. It is not just swimstandards and myswimio.

Why would an LSC prevent innovation? Do they want parents to go back to creating and maintaining spreadsheets for their kids? Do they want to coaches to have to go back to manually updating spreadsheets and word documents, etc to track their kids times, event progress, seasonal changes, etc?

You, as members of PV and VA, need to stand up to your boards and demand they start publishing the results, and do it without DOBs if that is a real concern. Get your coaches and team officials involved. They should represent you, not their own self-interests or a third party developer within their LSC.

Here is an email to reach out to PVS and request meet files (without dobs) be posted or PVS can send them directly to swimcould, myswimio, swimmetry, swimstandards, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The minutes from the August BOD meeting (PVS) has a report regarding the decision not to post the back up file any more because of concerns over the PII of swimmers contained in it. I’m assuming this is in reference to the actual DOBs of swimmers since the names and ages are contained in the results PDF that is still being posted. There is also reference to the author of the report “hearing” that USAS was discussing a policy change that would require LSCs to not post the results and back up file. It does not appear that this rule is actually in effect, just that this person from PVS “heard” it was being discussed.

I bet it never occurred to them that swimmers might be upset by this because now sites will not be able to upload this information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swimstandards and Swimmetry seem to be updated now as well, including the meet in Charlottesville that some PVS teams went to this past weekend.

Swimcloud is not. Have not checked myswimiow

MySwimIO is going to be useless now that PV and VSI are not supplying the meet files. I really like it too; such a shame.

Swimmcloud only takes the meet files too. So not sure what they are going to do.

I do not believe this is a rule change either.

It can’t be USA swimming rule change because most of the other LSCs are still providing the meet files.

Because it isn't a USA Swimming rule change.

I am the owner and developer of MySwimIO, and this looks purely like an attempt to favor one third party tool over another. This is all emanating from the DC area where the author and owner of swimstandards is located. They continue to get all the meet results files from Virginia, not surprisingly. The excuse of privacy is invalid, because as it has been pointed out by many to the VA board, it is easy to generate the hy-tek result files without the date of births. Some LSCs do that already. So that is NOT an issue, but they continue to use it as an excuse.

The second reason they said is because it no longer needs to be posted in one central location because the meet hosts send them to the coaches directly. How is that more efficient than one central location for coaches and any third party to look? How many emails do coaches and meet hosts get asking for the files, because they are not posted in one central location? There are dozens of tools out there in development and going in this direction stifles any innovation from those developers and anyone else interested in creating their own tool. It is not just swimstandards and myswimio.

Why would an LSC prevent innovation? Do they want parents to go back to creating and maintaining spreadsheets for their kids? Do they want to coaches to have to go back to manually updating spreadsheets and word documents, etc to track their kids times, event progress, seasonal changes, etc?

You, as members of PV and VA, need to stand up to your boards and demand they start publishing the results, and do it without DOBs if that is a real concern. Get your coaches and team officials involved. They should represent you, not their own self-interests or a third party developer within their LSC.

Here is an email to reach out to PVS and request meet files (without dobs) be posted or PVS can send them directly to swimcould, myswimio, swimmetry, swimstandards, etc.

You can email PVS at [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The minutes from the August BOD meeting (PVS) has a report regarding the decision not to post the back up file any more because of concerns over the PII of swimmers contained in it. I’m assuming this is in reference to the actual DOBs of swimmers since the names and ages are contained in the results PDF that is still being posted. There is also reference to the author of the report “hearing” that USAS was discussing a policy change that would require LSCs to not post the results and back up file. It does not appear that this rule is actually in effect, just that this person from PVS “heard” it was being discussed.

I bet it never occurred to them that swimmers might be upset by this because now sites will not be able to upload this information.

At a minimum it should have occurred to them that this would impact Swimcloud, knowing how commonly that is used as a recruiting tool. It seems crazy that this year’s juniors and seniors will not be able to use that platform for recruiting purposes.

[Anonymous]

I don't think we need to attack the PVS board- it appears this was based on a concern about PII, without an understanding of the consequences. That being said- for those who are suggesting birth dates be suppressed, don't you need the birth dates to match swimmers. e.g. there can be multiple " Larla Jones" who swim- the DOB is what makes sure you have the right Larla Jones. Or is the USA swimming ID enough? I know for summer swim the birth dates are necessary to match swimmers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think we need to attack the PVS board- it appears this was based on a concern about PII, without an understanding of the consequences. That being said- for those who are suggesting birth dates be suppressed, don't you need the birth dates to match swimmers. e.g. there can be multiple " Larla Jones" who swim- the DOB is what makes sure you have the right Larla Jones. Or is the USA swimming ID enough? I know for summer swim the birth dates are necessary to match swimmers.

USAS IDs are unique identifiers, with no other purpose outside the world of swimming. Next they will say those should be handled as PII too.