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Is Your Data Safe When You’re Playing Fortnite?
Fortnight is one of the most viral, action-packed games of 2018. You can play it on almost any device including PlayStation 4, XBox One, a PC, a Mac, and IOS devices. The graphics are incredible, and the landscapes are both dreamlike and harshly realistic simultaneously. Each game starts with exactly 100 players, no more, no less. After a little warm-up action, you’re dropped via parachute from a magic, flying, janky, blue party bus into your terrain of choice on the big island. From the moment you land until the final gauntlet throw down, the game is a non-stop challenge of wit, intelligence, stealth, and quick draw action.
You can play Fortnite in squads, duos or solo. Squads are groups of three to four players who help each other and engage in combat together. Duos are similar to squads, except in pairs. Single play might be the most difficult, and the most challenging of the three modes. Regardless of which mode you play in, there’s only one winner in the end. Something I hope Epic will consider in the future is adding a feature that allows a duo or squad to win a game. That would be cool, right?
A big component of playing in squads or duos is audio. When playing solo, this isn’t as important and the game can be played with audio on or off. But if you’re working together, communication is helpful. To this end, you can pop in a pair of earbuds with a microphone or a headset and talk to other players over WIFI. You can hear anyone talking in the game, and vice versa. And here’s where the data privacy issue comes in.
While most of the audio is coming from players, background conversations around the player can be heard over the game, if the microphone picks up the sounds. Which means, other players can hear your dog barking, your kid crying, your boyfriend or girlfriend laughing, or your mom yelling–at you. If players can hear each other, then it’s possible that others can hear all this conversing. It’s also possible that the games are being recorded. We’ve all learned what happens when someone offers up “free” software. We usually find out a few years later what our grandmothers always told us, nothing is free in this world except the air the sun and the moon, at least for now. So, if the game is free, as in bartering play time for personal information and data capture, then there may be a problem.
So what’s their stance on safeguarding your personal information? Fortnite’s privacy policy states that “When you choose to use a social feature of our games and applications, you allow Epic to receive information about you from social networks.” It also states, “We collect some information automatically when you visit our websites or use our games…” The privacy policy goes on to say that when you use any Epic game from a third party website, that website may allow Epic access to your profile information “and potentially any and all information that you agreed the social network or other party could provide to us when you use our games and applications.” The final answer is—when you play Fortnite on any device, any information you agreed the device owner could share will be shared. Is your data safe when you’re playing Fortnite? That depends on whether you trust them to misuse it. Do you?
If you feel your personal information has been compromised by social media or other ways, you might want to contact an internet removal service. They can help you delete information and remove google search results.
