Privacy Policy

Foreword

While this privacy policy is framed in terms of "we", EDR is a hobby project, developed by one person, in their spare time. My goal with EDR is to help more people enjoy Elite: Dangerous by providing various guidance (e.g. what rare materials you can expect in a given system, whether or not another commander is dangerous) or by facilitating opportunities for more interesting experiences (e.g. reporting sightings of known outlaws, or powerplay enemies).

This privacy policy may sound a bit formal but we live in interesting times... To make things simple, this is a well-intentioned effort with no interest in selling, taking advantage of, or abusing your personal information. If you have any question or concerns, you can always reach us out (see the CONTACT link at the bottom of this page).

We refer to all our products together with our websites as “Services” in this policy.

Note that by virtue of playing Elite: Dangerous, you have already agreed to terms set by Frontier in the following documents:

We strongly recommend that you get yourself familiar with these documents before reading our privacy policy.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS POLICY OR OUR TERMS OF SERVICES, DO NOT ACCESS NOR USE OUR SERVICES, AND DO NOT INTERACT WITH ANY OTHER ASPECT OF OUR OFFERING.

Overview

We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our users and the Personal Information they have entrusted to us. As such, it is important for you to understand what Personal Information we may collect, how we may use it, and whom it might be shared with.

This Privacy Policy is tailored to the operations of our Services in the European Economic Area (EEA). It gives users based in EEA certain rights by operation of the EU GDPR. If you live outside the EEA, we will undertake our best efforts to give you a similar degree of control over your privacy.

Personal Information means information about an identifiable individual. It includes information that you have provided to us or was collected by us from other sources. For instance, our Services may collect your email address as part of registering an account.

Our website and tools may contain links to other third party websites, or use third party APIs. Please note that these have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies or processing of your Personal Information. Please check these policies before you agree to use our website or our tools.

This Privacy Policy is intended to explain our privacy practices and covers the following areas:

  • What Personal Information about you we may collect
  • How we may use your Personal Information
  • Who we may share your Personal Information with
  • How we protect your Personal Information
  • Contacting us & your rights to access and update your Personal Information
  • Our Cookies Policy
  • How changes to this Privacy Policy and the Cookies Policy will be made

Information we may collect about you

If you use our Services, we may collect and process all or some of the following Personal Information about you:

  • Information you provide to us
  • Information automatically collected while using our Services
  • Information provided to us by third parties

The information we collect includes account and contact information, device and connection information, Service information and logs.

Information you provide to us

We collect information about you when you input it into the Services or otherwise provide it to us.

Account and Profile information

We collect information about you when you do one or more of the following with our Services:

  • Register for an account
  • Modify your account

The information we collect is the following:

  • Your Commander's name
  • Email address
  • Your EDR account id (unique, automatic)
  • Preferred means of communication and associated id, e.g. email, discord, reddit, etc.
  • Optionally: your timezone, your preferred game modes and in-game role, a free form comment.

If you do not wish to supply the above information, then you will have limited access to our Services.

Content you provide while playing Elite: Dangerous with our plugin enabled

When you play Elite: Dangerous with our plugin enabled, we collect information on how you use the game and certain events or interactions.

The personal information we may collect when you do this is:

  • Your commander's name
  • Email
  • Your EDR account id
  • Information about your commander, e.g. name, legal status, powerplay
  • Information about your location in-game, e.g. star system, supercruise, station, planet
  • Information about your ship, e.g. type, status
  • Information about other commanders you encounter, including their legal status, location, and their ship (type, status)
  • Information about the star systems, planets, stations, fleet carriers you visit, e.g. factions states, materials densities, market and bar info

Note that our plugin can be used without explicitly registering for an account. In that case, only the basic features will work, and the information collected will be similar with the exception of your email address which isn't needed.

Content you provide while using our discord bot

When you invite our discord bot, we collect information on how the bot is used for delivering and improving our services. We also use the information for monitoring and managing abuse.

The personal information we may collect when you have invited the Discord bot to a server:

  • Server name/id, channel name/id, username, alias, id, role
  • The content of Slash Commands associated with the bot

We collect information when you, or someone on the Discord server, do one or more of the following with our discord bot:

  • Invite the bot
  • Issue a Slash Command, e.g. obtaining a commander's profile

If you do not wish to supply the above information, then you must NOT use the discord bot.

Information you provide through our support channels

The Services also include our user support, where you can submit information about a problem you experience with a Service. When you engage with our support channels, you will be asked to provide contact information, a summary of the problem and any other documentation.

The contact information we ask you to provide is one or more of the following:

  • Email Address or username on Discord, Reddit, Elite Dangerous Forum
  • Commander name

If you do not provide an email address or any other communication option, we will not be able to resolve your problem.

Should you experience any issues with the plugin, you can share with us a log for troubleshooting. The log contains Personal Information as detailed earlier, as well as information about your computer which might include your username.

Information we collect automatically when you use the Services

We collect information about you when you use our Services, including browsing our website and taking certain actions within the Services.

Your use of the Services

The information we collect automatically when you use our Services are:

  • How you interact with the Services.
  • Events of interest during the use of our Services.

For example, when you log into EDR we will record that you have logged into the Service.

Due to the nature of common internet protocols used for communicating with EDR's servers, your Internet Protocol (IP) Address is automaically sent alongside when you interact with our Services via the EDR plugin. This not unique to EDR, and is not different from when you interact with any website, or any online game such as Elite Dangerous. Note: Discord bots are proxied by Discord itself, and thus don't have access to user IP addresses.

Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

N/A because there are no cookies nor web tracking technologies (i.e. we didn't even bother with analytics).

Information from third parties

We receive information about you from third-party services when you interact with certain Services or via information made public by other third-party services.

Information made public by third parties

We may use information made public by third-parties via a website and/or APIs. The information we collect this way is:

  • Third-party user id
  • Commander name, role and affiliation (e.g. powerplay, allegiance, squadron)

For example, Inara makes commander profiles accessible via an API.

The information we receive depends on the settings, permissions and privacy policy controlled by that third-party service. You should always check the privacy settings and notices in these third-party services to understand what data may be disclosed to us or shared.

How we use the information we collect

How we use the information we collect depends, in part, on the Services you use, how you use them and any preferences you have communicated to us. These uses include providing, securing and improving the Services, communicating with you about the Services, support for the Services, and with your consent, additional marketing about the Services.

To provide the Services

We use the information in order to provide you our Services, including:

  • Authenticate you when you log in
  • Operate and maintain the Services
  • Provide user support

For example, your location and ship information are used when issuing a request for fuel or repairs.

For research and development

We are always looking for ways to improve our Services. We extract insights from how people use our Services and feedback provided directly to us for the following:

  • Identify bugs, resource intensive operations, and troubleshoot any issues users are experiencing
  • Identify interesting or peculiar trends and activity patterns
  • Identify areas which can be improved to help the user experience, or which can result in new features

For example, to identify if a user's plugin is performing unexpectedly, we need to be able to identify a user's queries and events to understand if there is a bug or a general scaling issue.

To communicate with you about the Services

We may use your contact information to send transactional communications via email for the following:

  • Responding to questions and requests
  • Providing customer support
  • Sending you technical notices and updates

These communications are part of the Services and, in most cases, you cannot opt out of them. If an opt out is available, you will find the option within the communication itself or in your account settings.

We may also provide tailored communications based on your activity and interactions with our Services. For example, certain actions you take within the Services may trigger additional relevant suggestions of actions you could take.

Customer support

We use your information to:

  • Resolve technical issues you encounter
  • Respond to your requests for assistance
  • To analyse bug reports
  • Improve our Services

For safety and security

We use information about you and your usage of our Services to:

  • Verify accounts and activity
  • Monitor suspicious or fraudulent activity
  • Identify violations of Service policies
  • To protect our legitimate business interests and legal rights

Where required by law or where we believe it is necessary to protect our legal rights, interests and the interests of others, we use information about you in connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory, and audit functions.

With your consent

We use information about you where you have given us consent to do so for a specific purpose not listed above. For example, we may publish testimonials or feature user stories to promote the Services, with your permission.

Legal ground for processing your personal information

In this section, we set out the purposes for which we use Personal Information that we collect via our Services. We also identify the “legal grounds” on which we rely to process the information for compliance with European law (GDPR). These “legal grounds” are set out in European Data Protection Law, which allows companies to process personal information only when the processing is permitted by the specific “legal grounds” set out in law.

  • Consent: where you have consented to our use of your information
  • Contract performance: where your information is necessary to enter into or perform our contract with you.
  • Legal obligation: where we need to use your information to comply with our legal obligations.
  • Legitimate interests: where we use your information to achieve a legitimate interest and our reasons for using it outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights.
  • Legal claims: where your information is necessary for us to defend, prosecute or make a claim against you, us or a third party.

If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place.

Where we are using your information because we or a third party have a legitimate interest to do so, you have the right to object to that use though, in some cases, this may mean no longer using the Services or certain features of Elite: Dangerous.

In particular, you should be aware of the following section in Frontier's Privacy Policy (emphasis added):

SHARING WITH OTHER SERVICE USERS

[...] There are certain features within our games that make game data public on other Services. The information made public varies between game and feature, however players will be notified of this information before they start using the feature. In some cases, players may prevent this information being made public by not using the specific feature. Otherwise, players will need to stop using the game in its entirety.

Within our Services, certain games allow for players to play the game their own way and create their own story. Some of our games therefore generate logs which show certain player interactions. This allows players to build up their own story outside the game. When a player interacts with a second player under certain circumstances, the second player’s username will appear in the original player’s logs. The information which is in these logs is information which has already been made public by players interacting with our Services.

How this information is used is up to the player and Frontier Developments cannot control how this is used. This feature is fundamental to using certain Services. If you do not wish your username to appear in these logs, then do not interact with the Services. If you terminate your game account, your username will still remain on players' computers within these logs.

How we share the information we collect

Most of the features we provide through our Services require the use of data collected by other players, either through our own Services or via third party services. This implies some degree of sharing information. We share information we collect about you in the ways discussed below. We do not sell your information to third parties.

Sharing with other service users

When you use the Service, we may share certain information about you with other Service users.

Sharing with other services

When you use the Service, we may share certain information about you with third party services in order to operate, provide, improve, customize, or support our Services.

Service Providers

We work with third party service providers for the following reasons:

  • Website and application development
  • Hosting
  • Storage and backup
  • Database
  • Infrastructure
  • Analysis
  • Email and other forms of communications
  • Surveys

Links to third party sites or services

The Service may include links to other sites or services whose privacy practices may differ from ours. If you submit information to any of those third party sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies, not this one. We strongly recommend that you carefully read their privacy policy.

Use of third party services

Our Services make use of other third party services built for Elite: Dangerous. The information submitted to these services is governed by the privacy policies of these services, not this one. We strongly recommend that you carefully read their privacy policy. If you disagree with their terms, you shall NOT use our Services.

We use these services for the following reasons and example scenarios:

  • Convenience, e.g. EDMC provides functionality that makes it easier to write a plugin for Elite: Dangerous
  • Augmenting our data, e.g. Inara provides access to the public profiles of commanders via an API
  • Facilitating some features, e.g. EDSM provides access to data about star systems which we use for features like distance calculation and more
  • Share interesting events with other commanders, e.g. in addition to the information made available via the plugin, we also post sightings of outlaws, powerplay enemies as well as combat interaction for the benefit of enforcers and patreon supporters in lawful or powerplay discord servers.
  • Share requests for help with relevant parties, e.g. we may post requests for fuel/repair to discord servers affiliated with groups such as Fuel Rats or Repair Corgis.

Notes: we do NOT share your email address with any of these services. Your commander name is NOT included in the sightings of outlaws, or powerplay enemies. However, it is included in the combat interactions and requests for help.

Compliance with Enforcement Requests and Applicable Laws; Enforcement of Our Rights

In exceptional circumstances, we may share information about you with a third party if we believe that sharing is reasonably necessary to (a) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, including to meet national security requirements, (b) enforce our agreements, policies and terms of service, (c) protect the security or integrity of our products and services, (d) protect our users, or the public from harm or illegal activities.

How your information is stored and secured

We use data hosting service providers based in the United States to store the information we collect, and we use the best practices and technical measures to secure your data, e.g. HTTPS transmission.

However, no security system is impenetrable. Due to the nature of the Internet, it's possible that your data gets intercepted when it is transmitted. We recommend that you exert caution when connecting on a WiFi hotspot that you do not own. We also urge you to use a strong password and to never re-use the same password on multiple sites or services.

How long do we keep your information

We retain your account information until you decide to close it or until we can no longer provide our Services.

We may retain some of your non-account information to the extent that it is necessary for the proper operation and improvement of our Services, or for legal reasons. We take steps to anonymize this non-account information.

If you delete your account, some of your information and the content you have provided will be retained for other users to make full use of the Services. For example, we continue to show your sightings for as long as they are of interest.

Accessing and controling your information

You have certain rights available to you when it comes to your information. Below is a summary of those rights, how to exercise them and any limitations.

  • Obtain a copy of your information
  • Object to our use of your information (including for marketing purposes)
  • Withdraw previously given consent
  • Request the deletion, restriction, or rectification of your information
  • Request your information in a structured, electronic format
  • Right to complain to a relevant supervisory authority

What follows is an overview of the tools and processes for making these requests. Some of these requests are self-served by logging into the Services and using certain settings or features. Other requests require a direct inquiry.

Your request and rights may be limited in certain cases. For example:

  • Proceeding your request would imply revealing information about another person
  • Your request is about information that we are allowed to hold and process by law or on the basis of a compelling legitimate interest
  • The object of your request involves information that has been reported by other EDR users. In that case, we urge you to first re-read Frontier's privacy policy, in particular the section highlighted here as it significantly impact what you can request.

Obtaining a copy of your information

You may request any of the personal information we hold on you.

Accessing and updating your information

Our Services may give you the ability to self-serve these requests. If this isn't possible, you may request that we do so on your behalf by contacting us with details about your request.

Deleting your account

Ask us to delete your account if you no longer wish to use our Services. We will let you know if not all the information can be deleted as well as explain the implications of deleting your account.

Objecting to our use of your information

In some circumstances, you may ask us to stop accessing, storing, using and otherwise processing your information where you believe we don't have the appropriate rights to do so. For example, if you believe a Service account was created for you without your permission, you can request that we delete your account as provided in this policy. Where you gave us consent to use your information for a limited purpose, you can contact us to withdraw that consent, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place before that time. When you make such requests, we may need time to investigate and facilitate your request.

If your request is about information that has been reported by other EDR users, we urge you to first re-read Frontier's privacy policy, in particular the section highlighted here as it significantly impacts what you can request.

Opt out of communications

In the event that we send promotional communications, you may use the unsubscribe link within each email, updating your email preferences within your account settings menu to opt-out of these. Note that you will continue to receive transactional messages from us regarding our Services.

Other important privacy information

Our policy regarding children

If you are under 16, please make sure you have consent from your parent(s) and/or guardian(s) before using the Services.

Changes to our Privacy Policy and/or Cookies Policy

We may change the content of our websites, or the services of our tools and consequently our Privacy Policy or our Cookies Policy may change from time to time in the future. If we change this Privacy Policy or our Cookies Policy, we will update the date it was last changed below. If these changes are material, we will indicate this clearly on our Website or our tools.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on October 4th 2022.