Ostrzeżenie: *Prywatność dla tego produktu do nabycia osobno
If you're a serious PC gamer, you probably use Steam, the online game store, community, and place to go to find and play nearly 30,000 games. Owned by Valve, Steam launched their handheld console, Steam Deck, to let PC gamers play someone other than their PC. Turns out, people liked that idea. It was so hard to get a hold of one when it came out that it was referred to as a "Nintendo Switch for adults" by one publication. That's all fine and dandy, but how does Valve's Steam Deck do at privacy? Well, eh, they aren't the worst, we'll give them that.
Co się może stać, jeśli coś pójdzie nie tak?
Good news! Valve's privacy policy, which covers the Steam Deck and the Steam store, doesn't raise any huge privacy concerns for us. It’s a little vague for our tastes, but we didn’t see any big red flags. We like that they say they don't require users to provide a real name when signing up for a Steam User Account. You will need to provide an email and a user name, and then will be assigned a Steam ID number that will be used to reference your account, rather than something more personally identifiable. This is good. Of course, Valve still says they can collect personal information on you, including any information you provide identifying yourself in posts to chats or message boards, so, as always, be aware of what you share online.
We also like that Valve says they don’t sell data. Yay! They make no explicit mention in their privacy policy if they share data with third parties for targeted advertising purposes. It’s always nice when a privacy policy explicitly states they do or do not share your personal information like that. However, you can bet that Valve knows what games you're playing, when you’re playing, for how long, and the like so they can target you with ads for similar games. Through their API, the software that connects to other software, Steam makes certain user information available to other players and their partners. That includes your alias, avatar, and whether you’ve cheated in a multiplayer game. Not that any of you all would have to worry about that! All in all, it’s pretty standard stuff.
Valve does say they can process anonymous data and they may share anonymous data, aggregated or not, with third parties. This is a fairly common practice and doesn’t worry us too much. However, it is always good to remind people that some anonymous data has been found to be relatively easy to re-identify. But, Valve does grant everyone -- regardless of whether or not you live under strong privacy laws -- the right to delete their data. So, that's good and a good thing to do from time to time.
Here’s the bad news about the Steam Deck though. We can’t confirm it meets our Minimum Security Standards because we can’t confirm it uses encryption or if Valve has a way to manage security vulnerabilities. We emailed Valve three times with our privacy and security questions again this year and, just like last year, haven’t heard back from them. (It’s super common for brands to ignore our messages to their privacy inbox, but still a bummer.) There is a lot written out there on the internet about how to set up encryption on the Linux-based SteamOS yourself, but you have to be pretty tech savvy to sort it out. And, we don’t think that users should have to go through that to protect their data. If you would like some easier tips to make your Steam Deck more private, we found this article pretty helpful.
What’s the worst that could happen with your Steam Deck playing all those games online? Well, Steam is an online gaming community and those have been known to be pretty toxic, especially to women, the LGBTQ+ community, and minority gamers. So, be careful what you share on those public chats and message boards. Because while Valve might indicate they are doing a decent job handling your personal information, we’re not so sure every person on Steam will do the same. You don’t need to get doxxed or swatted or whatever the latest form of gaming harassment is because you overshared (or heck, just even shared) while playing Call of Duty.
Wskazówki, jak się chronić
- Do not sign up with third-party accounts. Better just log in with email and strong password.
- Chose a strong password! You may use a password control tool like 1Password, KeePass etc
- When starting a sign-up, do not agree to tracking of your data if possible.
- Review the tips in this help article.
Czy może mnie podsłuchiwać?
Aparat
Urządzenie: Nie
Aplikacja: Tak
Mikrofon
Urządzenie: Tak
Aplikacja: Nie
Śledzi położenie
Urządzenie: Tak
Aplikacja: Nie
Czego można użyć do rejestracji?
Tak
Telefon
Nie
Konto firmy trzeciej
Nie
Jakie dane zbiera ta firma?
Osobiste
Email address and country of residence; browser and device information, data collected through automated electronic interactions and application usage data.
Związane z ciałem
Społecznościowe
Jak ta firma wykorzystuje te dane?
Jak możesz kontrolować swoje dane?
Jaka jest znana historia tej firmy w zakresie ochrony danych użytkowników?
In 2020, CheckPoint found four major vulnerabilities in the popular Valve games networking library. All vulnerabilities were acknowledged and received CVE’s. There were four major vulnerabilities in total.
In 2019, Valve investigated Epic’s use of Steam data after users raised privacy concerns on Reddit.
Informacje o prywatności dziecka
Czy ten produkt może być używany bez połączenia z siecią?
An online connection is required to download games and play online multiplayer games. Once downloaded, some games can be played offline.
Przyjazne dla użytkownika informacje o prywatności?
Odnośniki do informacji o prywatności
Czy ten produkt spełnia nasze minimalne standardy bezpieczeństwa?
Szyfrowanie
Security researchers highlighted the lack of disk encryption at Steam Deck.
Silne hasło
Aktualizacje zabezpieczeń
Zajmuje się problemami z bezpieczeństwem
Zasady ochrony prywatności
Dowiedz się więcej
-
Steam Deck Privacy and SecuritySecureIdeas
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A Complete Guide to Privacy on the Steam DeckMake Use Of
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Pressure grows on Valve to unplug Steam gaming platform vulnerabilitiesPortSwigger
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Standard Privacy Report for SteamCommon Sense
-
Game over? Vulnerabilities on Valve’s Steam put hundreds of thousands gamers at riskCheck Point
-
Valve to investigate Epic’s use of Steam data after users raise privacy concernsMCV/Develop
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After 14 years, Steam finally gets some decent privacy settingsMashable
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4 security bugs discovered in games on Valve’s Steam platformTechRepublic
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Steam Pulls Game After Dev Goes On Transphobic Rant Against KeffalsKotaku
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