The Northerns

Privacy Policy

A plain-language explanation of what we collect and why. Last updated 12 August 2026.

This is a good-faith description of what this website and community actually do — written by the person who built it, not a law firm. It isn't a substitute for real legal advice, especially once paid features go live. If you have concerns, ask in Discord.

What we collect when you log in

Logging in uses Steam's own sign-in (OpenID) — we never see or store your Steam password. Steam gives us your SteamID, display name, and avatar image, which we store to run your profile, leaderboard rank, and admin tools. We do not capture your IP address anywhere in the login process.

A single signed, first-party session cookie keeps you logged in. It isn't readable or editable by other sites, and we don't use any third-party tracking or advertising cookies.

What we collect when you play

If you play on one of our servers, gameplay events (kills, deaths, playtime, resources gathered, chat messages, and similar) are logged to power the leaderboard, stats pages, and moderation tools. This is the same kind of data any Rust server admin panel needs to actually run a server.

What we don't do

No analytics or tracking scripts run on this site — no Google Analytics, no ad networks, no fingerprinting. Nothing here is sold to anyone. Steam and Discord webhooks (used only when you submit a report, appeal, or trigger something staff need to see) are the only outside services involved.

Who can see what

Kills, playtime, and similar stats are public on the leaderboard and your profile page by default, same as they would be in-game. Reports and ban appeals you submit are visible only to staff. Detailed per-server breakdowns on your own profile are only visible to you when logged in.

Requesting your data or deletion

There's no self-service delete-my-account button yet — message staff in Discord and we'll handle it directly. Game-server logs tied to moderation history may be kept longer where needed for fair enforcement of the rules.

Changes to this policy

If what we collect changes meaningfully — for example when payments go live — this page will be updated and the date at the top will change.