Privacy Policy

The short version

We collect what we need to run the cluster, the points and the shop, and to keep things fair: your in-game ID and character, what happens in game, your Discord ID if you link, and your purchases.
We never see your card details (Stripe handles payment) and we never store your IP address. We keep a one-way coded version for 90 days, only to catch ban evasion.
Game chat and game events are logged so staff can investigate reports and enforce the rules.
Your character name and stats can appear on the public leaderboard.
We don't sell your data, we don't use advertising trackers and we don't send marketing emails.
You can ask to see, correct or delete your data at any time.

1. Who we are

Arkade is run by Jrd-ops, the controller of your personal data (“we”, “us”). Contact us about anything in this policy at support@jrd-ops.com, or through our Discord server at discord.gg/ArkadeASA.

This policy covers our ARK: Survival Ascended servers (the “cluster”), arkade.site and its shop, the Arkade Discord server and our Discord bot, ArkWarden. It should be read with our Terms of Service.

2. What we collect

When you play on the cluster

You don't need to sign up for anything to play, but joining a map means we process:

Your game identity: your Epic Online Services player ID, character name, tribe name and tribe ID.
Your sessions: which map you joined, when you joined and left, and your total playtime (which earns points).
Game chat and commands: the messages you send in in-game chat, including commands such as /kit, /link and /report.
Game events: deaths and who or what caused them, kills, tames, structures destroyed, and your tribe's log.
Reports you make: your message and the map coordinates where you made it.
Your connection: when you join, the game server tells us your IP address. We don't store it. We store only a one-way, keyed code (a salted hash) made from it, with when we first and last saw it. This lets us spot the same connection on different accounts without keeping the address itself.
Your game world: your character, inventory, creatures, structures and tribe are saved in the game's save files, and in backups of them, like on any ARK server.

When you use Discord with us

Linking: your Discord user ID and the character you link to it with /link.
Commands: a record of which of our bot's commands you used, when, and whether it worked (not what you typed into it).
Support tickets: a transcript of the ticket (usernames, messages, times and links to attachments).
Invites: who invited you, the invite used, when you joined or left, and when your Discord account was created (to stop fake-account invite rewards).
Community features: giveaway entries, poll participation, and creator-code details if you are a creator.
Tribe raid alerts: if your tribe sets them up, the tribe, the player who verified it, who requested and approved it, and the webhook address your tribe's Discord gave us, which we store encrypted.
Messages in our Discord server: our bot can read messages in the channels it can see, so it can run commands, tickets and moderation features. Everything you post on Discord is also handled by Discord under Discord's Privacy Policy.

When you use arkade.site

Sign-in with Discord: we ask Discord only for your basic identity (the identify permission): your Discord user ID and display name. We don't receive your email address or password, and we don't keep your Discord sign-in token.
Server logs: like almost every website, our web server records each request: your IP address, the page or address requested, your browser's user agent, the referring page, and the time.
Fonts and the Discord panel: when a page loads, your browser fetches fonts from Google Fonts and, on the homepage, the list of who is online in our Discord server from Discord. Google and Discord therefore receive your IP address and browser details under their own privacy policies.

When you buy points

Payment details are collected by Stripe, not us. Stripe's secure checkout collects your card or payment details, email address and billing information directly. We never receive or store your card details.
We send Stripe the package you chose, your character name (as the item description), and your Discord user ID and player ID (to credit the right account). If you use a creator code or promotion, Stripe also records that.
We store the Stripe payment reference and event, the amount you paid, the points added, any creator code used (and the creator's commission), and the time. We use your total spend to award the VIP role.

Points, the shop and moderation

Points history: every change to your balance: points earned, bought, spent, given or corrected, with the reason (and, for manual changes, the staff member).
Shop orders: what you bought, its cost, choices you made (such as a stat or colour), the map it was delivered to, and whether delivery succeeded. Also kit claims, reserved slots and compensation.
Moderation records: bans, warnings and mutes (reason, staff member, dates), reports and their outcome, and the results of checks for alternate accounts.

3. How we use it and our lawful bases

UK data protection law requires a lawful basis for each use of your data. Ours are:

What we do	Lawful basis
Run the cluster and its features: sessions, playtime and points, linking, kits, the shop and deliveries, tribe alerts, support tickets	Contract (providing what you asked for) and legitimate interests (running the servers for everyone who plays)
Take payments, credit points, award the VIP role, handle refunds, and pay creator commission	Contract
Keep accounting and tax records	Legal obligation
Enforce the rules: investigate reports, detect cheating, alternate accounts and ban evasion, and moderate chat and behaviour (using chat, game events, reports, connection hashes and moderation records)	Legitimate interests: a fair, safe cluster and protecting it from abuse and fraud
Show leaderboards and stats	Legitimate interests: the community's competitive side. You can object (see section 10).
Keep the website, bot and servers secure and working (server logs, command records)	Legitimate interests: security and troubleshooting
Deal with disputes, chargebacks and legal claims, and respond to lawful requests	Legitimate interests and legal obligation

We don't use your data for advertising or marketing, we don't sell it, and we don't use automated decision-making that has legal or similarly significant effects on you: checks for alternate accounts only flag possible matches for a member of staff to review.

4. What is shown publicly

Game chat: global chat is shown to players on every map in the cluster, not just the one you are on.
Leaderboard (arkade.site/leaderboard and bot commands): character names with hours played, kills, deaths and structures destroyed.
Our Discord server: welcome messages, leaderboards, invite rankings and giveaway winners may show your Discord name.
arkade.site homepage: the usernames and avatars of some members online in our Discord server, from Discord's own widget.
Your tribe's Discord: if your tribe set up raid alerts, your tribe's log is posted there. Tribe logs can mention other players' character names.

Staff-only Discord channels also receive shop and top-up receipts, reports, moderation logs and a log of in-game chat. They are visible only to Arkade staff.

Service providers who run parts of Arkade for us: our hosting providers (our web and bot server is in the United Kingdom and our game servers are in the European Economic Area), Stripe (payments), Discord (our community and bot platform) and Google (web fonts). Stripe also uses payment data for its own purposes, such as fraud prevention, under Stripe's Privacy Policy.
The game's own services. When you play, Epic Online Services and the game's publisher process your data under their own privacy policies, not ours.
Arkade staff, only as far as they need it to run and moderate Arkade.
Authorities and others where the law requires it, or where it is needed to protect someone's safety, to report illegal content or activity, or to establish or defend legal claims.
A new operator, if Arkade is transferred to someone else, who would have to protect your data in line with this policy.

We never sell your personal data.

6. International transfers

Discord, Stripe and Google may process data in the United States and other countries outside the UK. Where they do, the transfer is protected by UK adequacy regulations (such as the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, where the company is certified) or by the UK's International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum. Our game servers are in the European Economic Area, which the UK recognises as providing adequate protection.

7. How long we keep it

Data	How long
Connection hashes	90 days after we last saw that connection
In-game chat, tribe logs, and joins, leaves and tames	90 days
Deaths, kills and structures destroyed	The raw log line: 90 days. The record the leaderboard counts (names, who killed whom, when): while Arkade runs
Website and server logs	Normally up to 90 days
Bot command records	12 months
Support ticket transcripts	12 months after the ticket closes
Invite records	While you're in our Discord server, and 12 months after you leave
Giveaway entries and polls	12 months after they end
Bans, mutes, warnings and reports	Bans until they are lifted; then, like mutes, warnings and reports, 2 years after they end or were dealt with
Points history, including payments	While Arkade runs, because your balance is calculated from it; payment records at least 6 years, as tax and accounting rules require
Link, sessions, playtime, leaderboard stats and shop orders	While Arkade runs, or until you ask us to delete them
Game saves and backups	Your game world while Arkade runs; rolling backups are replaced automatically

These periods are enforced automatically: a daily job deletes or clears data as it passes them.

8. Cookies and local storage

arkade.sid keeps you signed in to the shop after you sign in with Discord (secure, not readable by scripts, lasts up to 30 days). A short-lived cookie protects the sign-in process itself. Both are strictly necessary for signing in, so they don't need your consent, and they are only set if you sign in.
If you close a shop announcement banner, your browser remembers that you closed it (local storage). It holds no personal data.
We don't use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies.

9. Security

We use encrypted connections (HTTPS) for the website and its API, restrict access to staff who need it, never store card details or raw IP addresses, and encrypt stored server credentials and tribe webhook addresses. No system is perfectly secure, but if a breach affects your data and puts you at high risk, we will tell you, and we will report it to the Information Commissioner's Office where required.

10. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

access the personal data we hold about you and get a copy;
correct data that is wrong or incomplete;
have your data deleted, where we don't need to keep it (for example, we must keep payment records for tax purposes);
restrict how we use it while a concern is looked into;
object to uses based on our legitimate interests, including appearing on the leaderboard;
data portability: receive data you gave us in a machine-readable format; and
complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

To use any of these rights, email support@jrd-ops.com or contact us in our Discord server. We will ask you to confirm you control the Discord account or character concerned, and we will respond within one month. It's free unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive. Unlinking your character (/unlink) removes the link only; to delete other data, ask us.

11. Children

Arkade is for players aged 13 and over. We don't knowingly collect data from children under 13; if we learn that we have, we will delete it. We don't profile players for advertising, and public stats show in-game character names, not real names. Parents and guardians can contact us about a child's data at any time.

12. Changes to this policy and contact

We will post any update here with a new date, and announce significant changes in our Discord server before they take effect. For anything about your data, contact support@jrd-ops.com.