How do leagues/tournaments handle birth certificates?

As we start down the All-Star / Travel Ball path with my daughter, I'm curious to see how other leagues and tournaments handle age verification.

The local soccer organization does a "one and done" age verification for the rec level - you can walk in, show them, they mark it off, that's it (I believe until they age-out @ 18). Or email them a copy, and they delete ("electronically shred") it at the end of each season. (not sure why they keep it even that long, but better than storing them in a box on the shelf!). I guess travel soccer is much more organized (regimented?), b/c it sounds like their tournaments are run through a state-level organization, so while the state-level org uses separate system for age verification, it's again a one-time thing, and not repeated for each tournament.

For softball, based on what I've read on these boards, tournament director's (TD) want to do this in-person.

1. Does this mean coaches have to carry around physical copies of the certificates?
2. Does anyone's leagues provide guidance on how store this kind of PII between tournaments, or what to do with it when the season is over?
3. How official do the copies have to be? Can we photocopy it, or do TDs even want to see a raised seal on the copy?
4. What methods have you seen that you wish more tournaments/organizations would use?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

--Gags

DD provided birth certificate in 8u, she plays 18U now.

Never had to provide it again. I would guess they would destroy it if we asked.

Around here they will accept a screen print of birth certificates at tournaments.

Birth certificates were provided to the league for rec registration. As a team manager for tournaments, I've always carried copies, but I've never been asked for one. Our roster is online, and tournament directors where I live accept that absent a specific challenge. I've seen a few teams that I wondered about, but it's pretty rare to actually find a team cheating at a local tournament. It did happen last year, and that team was ejected and it quickly disintegrated. In most places, I think that the softball community is small enough that SOMEONE will recognize a player who is out of place. Age verification isn't as big a problem as lower level teams using pick-ups from higher level teams.

Basically the coach got copies in the begin when the girls registered and then coach just kept a copy then even if we played a tourney in a different organization he just sent everything in with registration packet then also just always had a copy in his binder, was never an issue as long as you have everything together, usually only problems might be if someone is guesting then you might have to get it a copy from them and hang on to it as well.

DD does rec all-stars and we provide the league with a photocopy of her birth certificate. The league gets USA Softball photo IDs for the girls, which the coaches keep in a binder along with the copies of their birth certificates. They bring the binder to each tournament, though I don't know if they ever have to show anything.

For our rec all-star team I registered our team with USA (formerly ASA softball) and they require a copy of every girl (though if it is on file from prior year you don't need to resend).

In addition I'm required to carry a hard copy (or I suppose soft copy on my phone) in my team binder that needs be presented on request at tournaments.

I can't recall ever being asked for them at any of the local tours we've played.

The only time we have ever needed them was to get our first set of ASA cards. We always kept copies but never needed them. After that even during a USSSA tourney that wanted verification accepted the ASA cards.

It's not a bad idea to keep a copy of the birth certificates. If you play ASA they players (or parents) should keep their cards. We played a tournament last year where they checked out birth certificates. Fortunately we were able to fix the ones who were too old