What Can I Do to Hide My Player Profile?

Understanding Data Retention & Player Visibility on BattleMetrics

At BattleMetrics, our platform operates as a real-time, public index of multiplayer game server data. We provide vital ecosystem utilities that support a decentralized gaming landscape, including, but not limited to: server discovery, community safety metrics, anti-cheat visibility, and protection against malicious server fraud (such as player-count spoofing).

To balance individual player preferences with the collective security of millions of gamers and thousands of independent server administrators, our platform is built on strict data minimization principles and a transparent, role-based architecture.

1. Our Commitment to Data Minimization: The 12-Month Rolling Retention Policy

BattleMetrics does not maintain permanent, lifelong profiles on players. To satisfy the data protection principle of storage limitation, all granular session history is kept on a strict rolling 12-month schedule.

Automated Expiration: Any recorded gameplay session data automatically expires and is purged from our public directory 12 months after that session occurs. After that only high-level aggregates remain.

Verified vs Unverified Profiles: All verified profiles require a strong identifier match before gameplay is associated with them. This applies regardless of whether your profile is public or private. Where a strong match cannot be established, activity is not associated with a verified profile. Unverified profiles are based on player name matches only. Changing your player name effectively merges any subsequent session data into another unverified profile.

Why This Data Exists: This temporary 12-month window is strictly necessary to maintain community safety. Independent server owners and players rely on this recent historical context to do the following non-exhaustive list of critical functions: detect cheaters, verify peer-to-peer trust, and prevent malicious cross-server ban evasion.

2. Disconnecting the Data Feed at the Source (Free Ecosystem Controls)

Because BattleMetrics only indexes public data packets that are actively broadcast by game clients and server protocols, the most effective way to manage your visibility across the entire gaming ecosystem is to adjust your settings at the source. These options are free, immediate, and prevent / mitigate downstream tracking.

Utilize In-Game "Streamer Modes": Some modern multiplayer titles feature built-in privacy settings or "Streamer Modes" that automatically obfuscate or randomize your player name within external query protocols. When active, these settings effectively anonymize your presence globally. Note: For BattleMetrics to mirror these privacy signals on RCON-protected servers, the respective server administrator must have enabled privacy-detection features, either by enabling detection of "Streamer Mode" or by hiding the player list entirely. When detected, a player's privacy signal will be used to designate the session as permanently private to everyone but authorized users until that session history is deleted at the end of its 12-month life cycle. At the same time, the player profile is removed from public view (unauthorized users get an HTTP 404 page), the profile is not returned in search results, and the profile does not appear on the active list of players on the server. This signal ends on disconnection from the server. Sessions marked private in this way remain permanently private regardless of whether the player is later connected or subscribed.

Play on Servers that Have Hidden Player Lists: Server owners can choose to hide their entire player list as part of their RCON connection settings with us. When enabled, a hidden player list marks all player sessions as private. This uses the same mechanism as "Streamer Mode", above, but requires no setting change from the player. Any players playing on such servers will have their current session marked as permanently private, their profiles will return HTTP 404 errors, the profiles will not appear in search results, and the profiles will not appear on the list of active players as long as they are connected to the server. As above, sessions marked private on such servers remain permanently private regardless of whether the player is later connected or subscribed.

Select Non-RCON or Private Server Environments: You have total autonomy over where you choose to play. A huge number of servers do not utilize BattleMetrics RCON tools and only provide standard query-based player lists to BattleMetrics. On servers that censor public player lists (such as certain Rust servers), this results in functional anonymity from both our platform and the general public. Many server owners choose this option.

3. Front-End Profile Customization (Optional Toggle)

For players and server administrators who frequently participate in heavily moderated, RCON-enabled community servers but prefer to customize how their active 12-month history is formatted on our public web directory, we offer an optional front-end profile-masking interface toggle.

Important Legal & Operational Distinction

This masking toggle is an interface feature, not a data erasure tool.

Because the underlying telemetry is necessary to preserve community safety, protect third-party digital property, and prevent server fraud, this toggle does not delete data, nor does it alter the automated 12-month purge cycle. It simply sends a constant signal to our system to follow the same methodology as the "Streamer Mode" options above. The underlying logs remain visible to your own account and to the specific server administrators whose communities you have joined within the preceding 24 hours. Aggregates are still collected and available.

This toggle is a self-service convenience, not the mechanism for exercising data protection rights. Objection requests under applicable data protection frameworks are handled free of charge as described in Section 4 below, do not require a subscription or use of this toggle, and are assessed on their own terms.

Functional Distinction: This toggle applies the same privacy signal as the source-level controls described in Section 2, and produces the same outcome on our public interface. It differs with respect to duration: it remains active for as long as your subscription is active and you have the toggle set to "private". Sessions marked private while the signal is active remain private permanently. If the subscription lapses, the privacy signal ends, the profile returns to public display, and thereafter any new sessions are no longer marked as private.

Any new server sessions you initiate under the "private" signal will remain hidden from unauthorized public viewers, and the interface will restrict the display of a profile across the public web directory.

How to Claim a Profile and Enable the Toggle

If you have an active Premium subscription, an RCON subscription, or are an administrator within an active RCON organization, you can format your public profile visibility using the steps below:

1. Go to the account page. You can access it directly here: https://www.battlemetrics.com/account or by clicking the "person" icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. See below:

2. Navigate to the bottom-right of that page where "Account Management" is listed, or navigate directly through this link: https://www.battlemetrics.com/account/management

3. Add Steam as a sign-in method if you haven't already. Clicking the button will re-direct you to the Steam community login page. Sign in to continue.

4. Upon signing in, you should be prompted by a success notice.

5. Now that you have added the Steam account, you will notice a "Claim Player Profile" button next to the Steam Account type.

6. This will generate a prompt that seeks your consent to link your Steam account to your BattleMetrics profile. This allows you to manage your own privacy settings, claim your profile, and apply specific visibility preferences. If you agree, click continue.

7. Now the button will change to "Player Profile". Click it.

8. Now that you have clicked on the "Player Profile" button, you will be taken to the BattleMetrics player profile that is associated with your Steam64ID. To adjust the privacy settings of your player profile, select the "Settings" option in the upper-right.

9. This will create a prompt that will allow you to select your profile's privacy options. Read the disclaimer and select from the drop-down list the appropriate setting for you. You can also unclaim the profile from this page. Congratulations, you're done!

4. Regulatory Determinations & Statutory Rights

BattleMetrics indexes public multiplayer server query telemetry and makes it available to server administrators and players. Independent server operators and community members rely on that information to preserve network integrity, identify player-count spoofing, detect bought Steam accounts, inflated playtime, and assess ban evasion risk within their own communities. Determinations concerning any individual player are made by those operators and communities, not by BattleMetrics.

In accordance with data protection frameworks, data subjects can object to this processing relating to their unique, particular situation. If you wish to object on this basis, you should submit an email to support@battlemetrics.com with your objection.