Private by default: who can actually see the footage

There’s an assumption baked into most video apps: that you upload things because you want people to see them. Post, publish, share — the default is out. For a highlight reel of adults, fine. For a Saturday-morning under-10s game, that default is exactly wrong.

MatchReel is built the other way around. A new upload is private to the person who made it and admins — full stop — until they deliberately share it. Nothing is public unless someone makes it so.

The three questions that decide who sees a video

Access on MatchReel comes down to three simple things:

1. Who uploaded it?

The uploader always sees their own footage. If you filmed the match, it’s yours to watch, clip and — if you choose — share. If you do nothing after uploading, exactly two parties can see it: you and an admin. Not the team, not the club, not the internet.

2. Has it been shared with a team?

Sharing is a deliberate step. When an uploader shares a video with a team, the members of that team can see it — and no one else. A child’s footage isn’t broadcast across the whole club; it’s scoped to the team they actually play in.

3. Who’s allowed into that team?

This is the part that makes team-sharing safe. You don’t just walk into a team:

Anyone can create an account and watch public video and their own uploads.
Joining a team as a member, coach or manager is a request.
Team managers approve members and coaches. Admins approve managers.

So being able to see a team’s shared footage means an approved person let you in. Access follows real club roles, not an open door.

And if something shouldn’t be up at all

Defaults handle the common case; people handle the exceptions. Any parent or member can request a takedown, and admins can remove footage — including a soft-delete that pulls a video from view immediately while it’s looked at. You should never have to fight a platform to get your child out of a video.

Private-by-default isn’t a setting you have to find and switch on. It’s the state every upload starts in. Sharing is the deliberate act — not privacy.

Why we chose the harder default

Public-by-default is easier to build and grows faster — more views, more engagement, more reach. We didn’t choose it, because the product is footage of children, and the right default there isn’t “maximise reach”. It’s “seen by no one until someone with a reason decides otherwise”.

That’s the whole philosophy: share on purpose, never by accident. If you’d like the specifics of how access, roles and takedowns work, our safety & privacy page lays it out in plain language.

Ready to try it? MatchReel streams your team's matches live, records every game, and turns them into highlight clips — private by default, hosted in AWS Sydney, free to start. Start free →