01Who we are
Pickfall is a Minecraft: Java Edition server at play.pickfall.com, with this website. Pickfall, not Mojang or Microsoft, is responsible for the player data described here.
Pickfall's operator, named under Contact below, is the data controller for everything on this page. We haven't appointed a representative in the EU or the UK: write to us directly, at the email or postal address under Contact.
Requests about your data: email appeals@pickfall.com. Other questions: support@pickfall.com. You don't need an account to write to us.
02What we collect
We only collect what running the server, the website and the store needs. We never ask for your real name, address or phone number. At checkout, our page asks for an email for Stripe's receipt and Stripe's payment form asks for billing details. Both go from your browser to Stripe, and we don't keep them (see Purchases below).
| Data | When | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Minecraft account | Every time you join | Your Minecraft UUID, username and skin (as Mojang signs it), and when you first and last joined. |
| Hashed IP address | Every time you join | A keyed hash (HMAC-SHA256) of your IP address with when we first and last saw it. The key is kept apart from the database, so the hash can't be turned back into your IP from the database alone. Staff never see your IP address. |
| Gameplay | While you play | Your progress (rank, prestige, rebirth), pickaxe, mines, autominers, gang and settings, your balances, and every economy transaction (amount, what for, who with). |
| Moderation records | If staff act on your account | Warnings, mutes, kicks and bans: the offense, the reason you were shown, who gave it, when and when it ends. Staff notes and evidence links about you. Every staff action is written to an audit log. |
| Chat | When you chat | What you say in public and gang chat and in private messages, with when, where, your name and, for a private message, who it went to, is stored for 30 days so that staff can moderate it. Staff can read private messages too: they aren’t private from staff. That includes messages that weren’t shown because a filter (links, slurs), the spam limit or a mute stopped them. Only staff see the stored chat, never other players, and it’s deleted after 30 days. The server also remembers the last 30 minutes of chat in memory so that a report can copy what was said. Staff chat between staff members is stored. If you /ignore someone, your ignore list is kept until you change it. |
| Screenshares | If staff check your computer for cheats | If staff suspect cheating, they may ask you to share your screen in a private voice channel on Pickfall’s Discord. They look only at what a cheat check needs (running programs, the game’s folders and mods, mouse and keyboard software, recent downloads), never at your files, photos or messages, and they never take control of your computer or ask you to install anything. Staff keep a recording of what they found when it shows cheating; they record the whole check only when one staff member does it alone. You can refuse, but under our rules refusing counts as cheating. |
| Reports, appeals and complaints | If you report someone, someone reports you, or you appeal or complain on the report form | Who reported whom, when, the kind of report and what the sender said happened, an email address if the sender gave one (an intimate image report needs one), whether they asked not to be contacted, the declarations an intimate image report makes, and what staff did. A report made in game also keeps the reported player’s and the reporter’s chat lines from the 30 minutes before it. Staff see reports; the player reported never learns who reported them. |
| Discord tickets | If you open a ticket or apply for staff or media on Pickfall’s Discord | Your Discord user ID and username, what you wrote in the form, the messages in your ticket’s thread and staff’s replies (with any files’ names and links, and messages you deleted, marked as deleted), who was added to it, and which staff member handled and closed it. Staff read tickets in Discord and on the staff portal. |
| Website account | If you run /link, or open the sign-in link /store gives you | An account tied to your Minecraft UUID, and when you last signed in. Your password, if you set one, stored only as an argon2id hash. Each signed-in session, stored as a hash of its token with how you signed in, when it started, when it was last used and when it expires. |
| Discord account | When you link it | Your Discord user ID and username, the scopes you granted (identify and role_connections.write), and the access and refresh tokens Discord gives us, encrypted (AES-256-GCM). We can't read your messages or servers. |
| Purchases | When you buy from the store | What you bought, the amount and currency, the status, Stripe's IDs for the checkout, payment, subscription, invoice, charge, any dispute and each event, your Minecraft UUID, the date, and any refund or chargeback. The billing country you gave Stripe, to check where an item may be sold. Your answer to "Are you 18 or older?" and when you gave it, and when you ticked the two checkout consents. Stripe also sends us your name, email, billing address and card details (brand, last 4 digits, expiry and country, never the full number). We don't keep those, or your phone number or IP address. |
| If you write to us | Your email address and what you wrote, so we can answer. We don’t ask for an email anywhere else, except at checkout, where it goes straight to Stripe for your receipt. | |
| Staff security | Staff only | The two-factor secret (encrypted), hashes of recovery codes, wrong-code and lockout events, and the hashed IPs a staff member passed the check from. |
| Logs | Every connection and request | The game server, website and API write technical logs, which include IP addresses. Sign-in attempts are counted per IP for 15 minutes to stop password guessing. |
03Why we use it
The law asks us to name a legal basis for each use (GDPR and UK GDPR Article 6):
| What for | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Running your account and the game: progress, balances, showing your name and head, signing you in, delivering what you buy | Our contract with you: the terms of service |
| Keeping the game fair and safe: anti-cheat and screenshares, linking alt accounts by hashed IP, enforcing bans, moderation records, keeping chat for staff to moderate, account security, preventing fraud | Our legitimate interests, and every player’s, in a fair and safe game. We’ve weighed them against your privacy, with younger players in mind, which is why IPs are hashed and staff never see them, and why chat is kept only 30 days and only staff see it |
| Handling disputes and chargebacks, and keeping the records US law asks of us | Our legitimate interests in defending claims and meeting those laws |
| Discord sign-in, linked roles and your rank’s Discord role | Our contract with you, once you choose to link Discord |
| Anything optional we add later | Your consent, asked for first |
We don't sell or share your personal data, show ads, do targeted advertising, or use analytics or tracking services. Stripe's fraud checks on the checkout page are described under Cookies.
04How long we keep it
Your account stays until you ask us to erase it. That's your account and name, your progress and balances, what you bought and what you're entitled to (ranks, gems, keys, Pickfall+), your website account and your Discord link. Keeping them is how a lifetime rank stays yours if you take a break. Your purchase history and the economy ledger are the record of what you bought.
Other personal data goes after 12 months. A job runs every day and removes what has passed its 12 months:
- hashed IP addresses not seen for 12 months;
- chat older than 30 days;
- security events, staff notes, audit log entries and staff chat older than 12 months;
- reports, and the chat kept with them, 12 months after staff closed them;
- punishments that ended (expired, revoked, or warnings and kicks once given) more than 12 months ago, and longer than the offense counts towards the next step;
- resolved economy alerts and daily economy statistics about you older than 12 months;
- expired sessions and link tokens.
If you stop playing. Once you haven't joined the server or signed in to the website for 12 months, you also lose the rest of your hashed IPs, your sessions and link tokens, security records, and staff notes about you, and your name is taken off audit log entries and staff chat. Your account, website account, Discord link, ranks, balances and progress stay.
What's kept longer, and why:
- Punishments in force, with their notes and audit entries, and the hashed IPs an IP ban in force needs, so the ban still applies and an appeal can be checked.
- Open disputes: a purchase being disputed, refunded or charged back stays as it is until it's settled.
- Season results: each season's published leaderboards, and the archived copy of its economy.
| Data | Kept |
|---|---|
| Account, progress, balances, purchases and entitlements, website account, Discord link | Until you ask for an erasure. |
| Hashed IP addresses | 12 months after we last saw that address, or 12 months inactive; longer only for an IP ban in force. |
| Punishments | While in force, then 12 months after they end. |
| Public, gang and private chat | 30 days. A line staff use as evidence for a punishment is copied into it, and kept as the punishment is. |
| Staff notes, audit log, staff chat, security events | 12 months. |
| Screenshare recordings | A recording that shows cheating: as the punishment it supports. A whole check with nothing found: 30 days. |
| Reports and the chat kept with them | 12 months after the report is closed. Recent chat in the server’s memory: 30 minutes. |
| Discord tickets and applications | 12 months after the ticket is closed. |
| Sessions and link tokens | Until they expire: a day at most, or 30 days with "Keep me signed in"; link tokens 15 minutes. |
| Server, website and API logs | 12 months at most. |
| Emails to us | 12 months after the conversation ends. |
| Backups | 14 days. |
Stripe, and Link where it's the merchant of record, keep their own payment and tax records under Stripe's privacy policy.
07Children
Lots of Minecraft players are young, so we keep what we collect small: no real names, no addresses, no email unless you write to us, no ads and no profiling. Private messages between players are kept 30 days and staff can read them, as public chat.
- You must be 13 or older to play on Pickfall or to have a website account. Pickfall isn't made for children under 13.
- Only adults can buy. Before checkout you confirm whether you're 18 or older; if you say you aren't, the purchase stops.
- If we learn an account belongs to a child under 13, we close it and erase its data. Parents can tell us at appeals@pickfall.com.
08Your rights and erasure
You can ask for a copy of your data, to have it corrected, to have it erased, to restrict how we use it, or to object to it. These rights come from the GDPR and UK GDPR. US state privacy laws don't apply to a server our size, but we give every player the same rights, wherever they live.
- How: email appeals@pickfall.com with your Minecraft username. It's free.
- Proving it's you: we'll ask you to confirm from your signed-in website account, or to type a code we give you in game.
- How long: we answer within one month of confirming it's you. If a request is complex, or there are many, we may take up to two months more, and we'll tell you within the first month.
Erasing your account. Staff run a privacy erase. It ends your Discord link with Discord, disconnects you if you're online, then, all at once:
- deletes your website account, sessions, Discord link and link tokens; your hashed IPs; staff notes about you and punishments no longer in force; your ranks and permissions; your progress, private mine, pickaxe and autominers; your stored chat, and private messages sent to you; your ignore list, and you from other players' ignore lists; and your gang membership (a gang you lead passes to the next member in line, or disbands if you're its only member);
- replaces your UUID with a random one (pseudonymises) on the ledger, which stays as the record of purchases and balances, on economy statistics and alerts, gang history, audit log entries (with their details removed) and staff chat you sent;
- renames your account
erased-and the start of your UUID, and clears your skin and join dates.
An erasure removes what you bought too, and can't be undone. If you join again later, you start as a new player.
What stays after an erasure, and why:
- punishments still in force, with their notes and audit entries, and the hashed IPs an IP ban needs, so the ban still applies;
- a record that we erased your data, as proof we did, and so we can erase it again if we ever restore a backup;
- what you did as staff to other players, because it's part of their records;
- purchases with an open dispute or chargeback, until it's settled;
- archived seasons, which are offline copies of past seasons' economies.
If you're unhappy with how we handled your data, you can complain to your data protection authority: in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office; in the EU, the authority where you live.
09How we protect it
- Passwords, session tokens, link tokens and IP addresses are stored only as hashes. Discord tokens and staff two-factor secrets are encrypted.
- Staff never see raw IP addresses. Staff tools need two-factor authentication, and every staff action is logged.
- Staff can only see and act on what their rank allows.
10Changes to this policy
We'll give at least 30 days' notice of any material change, on this website and on Discord, and update the date at the top. Changes the law requires, or that protect players' security, can take effect at once.
11Contact
Data requests: appeals@pickfall.com. Anything else: support@pickfall.com. By post: Masen William Toplak, 538 E Grand Ave, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin 54494, USA. See also the terms of service and the moderation policy, which says what staff can see.