Privacy Policy

1. Data controller

The controller is the maintainer of the Frostbite Gaming community (a private individual). Contact: frostbiteestonia@gmail.com or the Frostbite Gaming Discord server.

We are not a company and have not appointed a Data Protection Officer because processing is small-scale, non-commercial and not systematic.

2. Data we process

Account: display name, email address and a password hash (we never see your password). Owner sign-in uses Steam.

Steam sign-in: Steam OpenID gives us only your 17-digit SteamID. We never receive your Steam password or other account details. Where needed we read your public Steam profile name and avatar from Steam.

Session data: while signed in we store your IP address and browser identifier (user agent) to keep accounts secure.

Game data: when you are connected to the server and signed in, the server mod may send your character data (name, skills, trophies, inventory). Only you and the owner can see it.

Forum content: posts, replies, reports and moderation decisions.

Public information: server status and player count are public. The player list and other server details are visible only to signed-in users.

Anonymous visit statistics: we count page views and file downloads. We do not store your IP address or a cookie for this; to count unique visitors we use a salted hash that changes every day, plus an approximate country.

3. Purposes and legal basis

Creating and managing accounts, sign-in, running the forum: contract (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)).

Security, abuse and spam prevention, removal of illegal content: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) and legal obligation (Digital Services Act).

Syncing character data: contract and your consent, which you can withdraw at any time by unlinking your game account.

Cookies: strictly necessary cookies only, which do not require consent (see Cookie Notice).

4. Automated moderation (AI)

Forum posts and reports are screened by an AI moderation bot. If it detects clearly rule-breaking or illegal content (e.g. hate speech, threats, illegal content, malware links), it may hide a post without prior warning.

For such decisions you have the right to human review: submit an appeal and the owner will review it. The bot never deletes accounts without human confirmation.

For moderation, the text of a post is sent to an AI service (via Vercel AI Gateway). We do not send your email, SteamID or other identifiers to it.

5. Who we share data with (processors)

Vercel Inc. (hosting, Vercel Blob, AI Gateway), Neon (database), Upstash (cache), Steam / Valve (sign-in), Discord (optional account linking).

Some are located outside the EEA (e.g. USA). Transfers are protected by the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and/or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

We do not sell or share personal data and do not use it for advertising. US residents (e.g. California) can also ask us for a copy or deletion of their data using the contact above, and we will not discriminate against anyone for doing so.

6. Retention

Account data is kept until you delete your account or ask us to. Session logs (IP, browser) for up to 30 days after the session ends. Moderation decisions and reports for up to 12 months. Forum posts are deleted or anonymised when you delete your account.

7. Your rights

You have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict, port and object to processing of your data (GDPR Art. 15-22). Write to us to use them.

If you believe we infringe your rights you can complain to the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (aki.ee, info@aki.ee).

8. Children

In Estonia a person aged 13 or older may consent on their own to information society services. Under-13s may not create an account. If we find an account belonging to an under-13, we delete it.

9. Security

Passwords are stored only as hashes, connections are encrypted (HTTPS), admin features are restricted to the owner and requests are rate limited against abuse. No system is perfectly secure; in case of a data breach we will notify you and the Data Protection Inspectorate within the required time.

10. Changes

We may update this policy. For material changes we will notify you on the site. The current version is always on this page.