Privacy Policy · Virtual Hockey League

This policy explains what personal data we collect when you play Virtual Hockey League and when you use this website, how we collect it, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it. We have kept it specific rather than filling it with legal boilerplate.

The short version

You play online with your Epic Games account. From it we receive only your account ID and display name, never your password, your email address or your payment details. How we handle them is in Your Epic Games account.
When you play, our servers record your in-game name, how you played each match and your progress. Your name and results are public on this website: that is what makes the leaderboards work.
Your account ID, your IP address and your connection details are never shown publicly. Your IP address is kept only in server logs, for up to 30 days.
Game diagnostics are sent only with your permission, and you can turn them off in the game at any time.
We never sell your personal data or share it for marketing.
This website sets cookies of its own only when you sign in, to keep you signed in, and runs no advertising trackers. An embedded video you choose to play may set cookies from the video platform.
You can get a copy of your data or delete your account yourself, on your account page on this website or where the game offers it, or by writing to us privately.

Who we are, and how to reach us

Virtual Hockey League is developed by Icebound Interactive s.r.o., Kurzova 2222/16, 155 00 Praha - Stodůlky, Czech Republic (IČO: 19890885). We are the data controller for the game’s online servers, for the stats service behind the leaderboards, and for this website.

For anything about your personal data, including requests for a copy or removal, email iceboundinteractive@gmail.com or write to us at the address above. Please do not post requests or personal details in public channels. For general questions you can also find us on our community server.

Your Epic Games account

Online play in Virtual Hockey League uses your Epic Games account. This section covers the data that comes from it.

What we receive, and how

When you sign in with your Epic Games account and allow the game to use it, we receive your Epic account ID and your display name. We never receive your password, the email address of your account, or any payment details.
When you join a match, our game server verifies your sign-in through Epic Games’ online services, then reports your Epic account ID, and the ID those services give you for our game, to our stats service with the match.
Your friends list and online statusare used by the game on your PC, through Epic Games’ online services, for parties, lobbies and invites. Our servers do not store your friends list. If you open the friends table in the game, the game sends your friends’ account IDs to our stats service to look up their results; they are read and forgotten, not kept.
On this website, signing in works the same way and gives us only your account ID and display name (see On this website).

How we use it

To recognise you from match to match and through name changes, so your career, rating, progress, items and settings stay yours.
To show your in-game name, which is your Epic display name unless you choose another one in the game’s settings.
To keep play fair and safe: a ban or a chat mute applies to your account, and your blocks, reports and commendations are linked to it.
To link things you send us to you: bug reports, crash reports, your answers to our terms and this policy, and (only if you allow them) game diagnostics.
To act on your rights: a copy of your data, or deleting your account.

Who we share it with

Your Epic account ID is never made public and never sold or passed to advertisers. It is stored on our servers in Germany (see Who else is involved).
Your in-game name is public, with your results, on this website and in the game (see When you play).
Epic Games: the game and our servers use Epic Games’ online services to sign you in and to run the server list, friends, parties and lobbies. How Epic Games handles your Epic account is set out in the Epic Games privacy policy.

How long we keep it

Your Epic account ID and display name are kept for as long as your account with us exists. When you delete your account, or we remove your profile at your request, the account ID and every record tied to it are deleted (see Your rights).
Records that name your account for a limited time follow their own periods: bug reports 180 days, game diagnostics 90 days, crash reports 30 days (see How long we keep it).

When you play

When you play on our servers, the game server reports every match to our stats service. That is what lets us run ranked play, keep ratings and progress, and show the leaderboards, player profiles and match pages on this website.

What is recorded

Your account, as described in Your Epic Games account. If you play without signing in, where a server allows it, you play as a guest: we record you by your in-game name alone, and you get no career or rating.
Your in-game name, the name other players see. We also keep the names you have played under before, so that a player who renames keeps one career.
Every match you play: the result and score, your team, whether you played in net, your time on the ice, the statistics the game counts (such as goals, assists, saves, shots, passes, hits and time with the puck), and who scored and assisted each goal.
Your rating and progress: your rating and how each match changed it, your level and experience, the achievements you earn, the shards you earn and spend, and the items you own or are given.
Connection details for each match: when you joined and left, and your worst ping and packet loss.
Server logs: when you connect, the game server writes your in-game name and your IP address to its log.
The full match report exactly as the game server sent it, which includes the names and account IDs of everyone in the match, so that we can correct the statistics if we find a bug.
Live matches: while a match is being played, the game server reports the score, the clock and who is playing, so the match can appear in the list of matches being played right now. It leaves the list when the match ends.
Whether you are online: while the game is signed in, it tells our stats service about once a minute whether you are in the menu, a lobby or a match. Only your clan mates can see it, only the latest state is kept (no history), and you can hide it in the game.
Clans and tournaments, if you take part: your clan, your role in it and its activity feed, and the tournament teams you sign up for, with their rosters and results.
Clips, if you share one: the video and its still image, the match and goal it shows, and how many times it has been watched. Views are counted without keeping who watched. Anyone can report a clip from its page; a report keeps its reason and the words written with it, and nothing about who sent it. We may also repost a clip you shared on our own social media accounts, where it shows your in-game name.
Gifts and friend codes, if you use them: the gifts you send and receive (who, what and when), your friend code, and the players who joined with it.
Keeping play fair and safe: reports you make or that are made about you, including the reason and any note; when a report comes from a match, the game server’s copy of the chat between the two players involved (at most 200 lines), which is the only chat we ever keep; the moderators’ answers, such as warnings, chat mutes and bans; the players you block; and the commendations you give and receive. Automatic checks point out statistics that look impossible or unusual so that a moderator can look at them; the only thing that happens automatically is a 24-hour chat mute when three different players report abuse within 24 hours, until a moderator reviews it.
Bug reportsyou send from the game: what you write, the game’s version, your account and name, and the game’s log files.
Crash reports, when the game or a server crashes: the kind of crash, the error and where in the code it happened, the game and engine versions, your operating system, processor, graphics card and memory, and your account. The crash file itself can contain your computer’s user name; we do not read it out, and the file is deleted after 30 days.
Game diagnostics, only with your permission: a random installation ID the game makes (not taken from your hardware), the game’s version and your platform, your operating system, processor, graphics card, memory and screen resolution, whether you signed in and finished the tutorial, which screens you open, queueing and matches starting and ending, settings you change, errors, and frame-rate figures. Your account is attached only while you are signed in, and no IP address is kept. If you say no, nothing is kept.
Your answers to our texts: which version of the terms, this privacy policy and the diagnostics question you accepted or declined, and when.
A linked community chat account, if you choose to link one, in the game or on your account page on this website: its user ID and name, used to give you your league’s role on our community server. We do not keep its access token.
Moderation records: if we void a match or act against a player, we record what was done, who did it and why.

The game keeps your settings, your tutorial progress and a match history on your own PC. That stays on your PC and we never collect it.

What is public, and what never is

Public: your in-game name, your matches and their statistics, your rating, its history and your league, your level, achievements and commendations, your clan and its tag, your tournament teams and results, when you first and last played, and whether you are a verified player. They appear on the leaderboards, on your player profile, on the pages of the matches you played and of your clan and your tournaments, which anyone can search by name. While you play an online match, its score, its clock and the names in it are shown as a live match. A rating is shown only after your first five counted matches; until then your profile says you are in placement. Matches where bots filled seats count in your own history but never on public leaderboards. Search engines may list these pages. The same public information is available through our public stats service, which other websites and apps can read, and results of matches between players are posted in our community server. A clip you share can be watched by anyone with its link, and we may repost it on our own social media accounts.

Never public:your Epic account ID and the ID Epic Games gives you for our game, your IP address, your connection details, the names you used before, reports and the chat attached to them, your blocks, bug reports, crash reports, diagnostics, and the reason for any ban. A banned player’s profile shows only that they are banned.

Why, and on what legal basis

Running the game you play: your account, matches, ratings, progress, items, clans, tournaments, clips, gifts and friend codes are what playing a competitive online game with these features consists of. Legal basis: providing the service you use (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR), and our legitimate interest in running a fair league (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Public leaderboards, profiles and match pages let every player check results and ratings for themselves, which is what makes a league fair, and let you find and share your own record. What we publish is limited to the name you chose in the game and how you played: never your account ID, IP address or anything that identifies you outside the game. Legal basis: our legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Safety, moderation, connection details, server logs, bug and crash reports let us deal with cheating, abuse, lag, disputed results and crashes, and protect our servers from attacks. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in a safe, working game (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Reposting shared clips on our social media accounts shows and promotes the game with what players chose to share. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in promoting Virtual Hockey League (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). If you would rather a post of your clip came down, write to us and we will remove it.
Game diagnostics and a linked community chat account: your consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you can withdraw at any time in the game, or by unlinking the account.

You can object to processing based on our legitimate interest at any time, and we will stop unless we have a compelling reason to continue, for example an open investigation into cheating. If you object to your record being public, we can remove your profile as described under “Your rights”.

On this website

Visitor statistics

We use a cookieless analytics tool to count page views and see which pages people find useful. It does not build a profile of you and does not follow you to other websites. To count visits it uses a hash of your request that changes every day and is discarded after 24 hours. What we see is aggregated: pages viewed, referring site, country, browser and device type. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in understanding how the site is used (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Technical logs

Our hosting provider processes your IP address and browser details to deliver the site and protect it from abuse and attacks, and keeps request logs for one hour. When you use the player search, look at the matches being played right now, or watch or report a shared clip, your browser asks our stats service directly. It holds your address in memory only, for up to an hour, to count a clip’s views once and to stop abuse, and does not store it. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in operating a secure, functioning website.

Playtest signup

If you sign up for playtests, we collect the community chat username and region you enter, your email address if you choose to add one (it is optional), and the date you gave consent. We use these details only to invite you to playtest sessions and to reach you about closely related development news. We do not use them for anything else and we do not pass them to advertisers. Legal basis: your consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you can withdraw at any time by contacting us, or by using the unsubscribe link in any email we send you.

Signing in

You can sign in on this website with the same Epic Games account you use to play online. You sign in through Epic Games, and we receive your account identifier and your display name. We never receive your password or the email address of that account. The permissions you are asked for may include your online status and friends list, because the game uses them; this website reads only your account identifier and display name. We use them to find your league career and show it to you. Signing in never creates a profile: your career starts with your first online match. Legal basis: providing the service you asked for (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).

A sign-in lasts 30 days, or until you sign out, whichever comes first.

Who else is involved

These providers handle personal data for us. Where they act on our behalf, they do so under contract and may not use it for their own purposes:

Server provider (Germany): runs the game servers and the stats service, in data centres in Germany. Your account ID and everything recorded when you play is stored there.
Epic Games (United States): the account sign-in and the online services the game is built on (the server list, friends, parties and lobbies). How Epic Games handles your Epic account is set out in the Epic Games privacy policy.
File storage provider (United States): stores the clips players share.
Website hosting provider (United States): hosts this website and provides its cookieless visitor statistics.
Domain name (DNS) provider (United States): answers the lookups that point your browser to our servers. Page traffic does not pass through it.
Form provider (United States): runs the playtest signup form.
Video platform (United States): receives data only once you press play on a video, under its own privacy policy.
Community chat platform (United States): hosts our community server, where match results and shared highlights are posted and league roles are given, under its own privacy policy.

If you would like to know exactly which companies these are, contact us and we will tell you.

Transfers outside Europe

Several of these providers are based in the United States, so personal data they handle may be processed there. Where that happens, the transfer is covered by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework for companies certified under it, or otherwise by the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. Our game servers and the stats service run in Germany. You can ask us which safeguard applies to which provider, and for a copy of the relevant clauses.

Embedded video and outside links

Videos on this site are embedded from an external video platform in its privacy-enhanced mode and do not load until you click play. Before that, nothing is requested from the video platform: the preview images are served from our own site. Once you press play, the video platform receives your request and may store data in your browser, and its own privacy policy applies. Links to our community server, our video channel and other services take you to third-party websites that we do not control and that are governed by their own policies.

Cookies

This website sets cookies of its own only when you sign in, and only to keep you signed in:

a sign-in cookie that holds your session, which scripts on the page cannot read, for 30 days or until you sign out;
a cookie that only tells the page to show “Account” instead of “Sign in”, for the same time;
while you sign in, a cookie that checks the sign-in finishes in the browser that started it, deleted after 10 minutes at most.

These cookies are strictly necessary for signing in, so they do not need your consent. We set no cookies for analytics, advertising or tracking, which is why you are not being asked to dismiss a cookie banner. Playing an embedded video may cause the video platform to store data in your browser under its own terms.

How long we keep it

Your account, profile, match history, statistics, rating and progress: as the record of the league, for as long as Virtual Hockey League runs, unless you delete your account or ask us to remove it.
Full match reports: 12 months, then deleted. The statistics already taken from them stay.
Connection details (join and leave times, ping, packet loss): 12 months, then deleted. After that, a year-old match is no longer worth investigating.
Server logs with IP addresses: up to 30 days. If we copy a log to look into a specific problem, we delete the copy when the problem is solved, and at the latest 90 days after we made it.
Game diagnostics: 90 days.
Crash reports: 30 days. After that we keep only the kind of crash and how often it happened, which says nothing about anybody.
Bug reports, with their log files: 180 days.
Reports about players, with the chat attached to them: 180 days after a moderator has answered them.
Shared clips: 30 days from when you share them, unless you delete them sooner. A clip we have reposted on our own social media accounts stays there until we remove it, or until you ask us to.
Moderation records: as the record of how the league is run, for as long as it runs. They are never public. If your profile is removed, the records about you are anonymised with it.
Your blocks, answers to our texts and a linked community chat account: until you change them, or your account is deleted.
Records of your data requests (downloads, and deletion requests you cancelled): 90 days.
Playtest signup details: until you ask us to remove them, or until we end the playtest programme, whichever comes first.
Website sign-ins: 30 days from when you sign in, or until you sign out. Ended sign-ins are then deleted.
Website request logs: one hour at our hosting provider. Visitor statistics are kept only as aggregated counts.

Deleted data can remain in our backup copies for up to 30 days, until those copies are replaced.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, or transfer it elsewhere. That includes your match history: you can ask for a copy of everything the stats service holds about you. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting anything done beforehand.

Doing it yourself

Download my data: on your account page on this website (sign in with your Epic Games account), or where the game offers it, you can download one file with everything we hold about your account, once a day. Other players appear in it only by the name they played under.
Delete my account: on your account page on this website, or where the game offers it, you can ask for your account to be deleted. It happens 14 days later, so you can change your mind until then, on the same page. An account cannot be deleted while it is banned; write to us instead.

What deleting your account removes

Whether you delete your account or ask us to remove your profile:

Deleted: your in-game name, the names you used before, your Epic account ID and the ID Epic Games gives you for our game, your rating and rating history, your progress, items, shards and the gifts you received, your connection details and any past bans, your clan membership, your places in tournaments not yet started, your clips, your friend code, reports you made and reports about you, your blocks and the blocks of you, commendations, automatic flags about you, a linked community chat account, your answers to our texts, your bug reports, crash reports and diagnostics, and the stored full report of every match you played. Your profile page stops existing, and you are signed out everywhere.
Kept:the matches themselves, with your statistics shown under “Removed player”, because other players’ results, ratings and match pages depend on them, and finished tournaments as they were played. People who played in a particular match with you may still recognise it. Gifts you gave stay with the players who received them.
Moderation records about you are anonymised: they keep only that an action was taken, when, and by which of our team, not who it concerned or why, and your name is taken out of the records about matches you played.
Server logs are not edited: they expire within 30 days. Backups are replaced within 30 days; if we ever restore one before then, we remove your data again.

Making a request privately

Email iceboundinteractive@gmail.com with your in-game name and what you would like. To make sure the request really comes from the player behind the profile, we will ask you to prove it without sending any documents, for example by joining one match under a one-off name we give you. We respond within one month.

If you believe we have handled your data improperly, you have the right to complain to the Czech data protection authority, the Office for Personal Data Protection (Úřad pro ochranu osobních údajů).

Children

This website and our online play are not directed at children under 15, and we do not knowingly collect their personal data. If you believe a child has given us their details or has been playing on our servers, contact us and we will delete their data.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle personal data, we will update this page and the date at the top. Where the game asks you to accept this policy, it will ask again when a new version is published. If a change materially affects people on the playtest list, we will say so by email.

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