DPS meter policy needs to be revised

[Paladine.6082]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:You are factually incorrect in every thing you just said. One does not give consent unless one gives consent - another action cannot be considered as consent. Attacking a mob is not consent for third parties to process that data and provide it to others - what you see as someone present as an observation is not the same thing at all. Furthermore you cannot as an observer determine how much damage one person is doing in a group (without a DPS meter) you can guess but you have no way of verifying that data or accurately pairing it with a specific individual within the group.

It's data on my own computer that was generated on the server and not client side then broadcast to all clients. It's no longer private information therefore the rest of your post is moot and void.

Incorrect again, read the entire post or go get a law degree - you are so far off on this it is embarrassing. If you like I could take it further and argue that legally speaking ArcDPS are classed as Data Controllers (they choose the purpose the data is being processed for) which gives them substantial legal liability but by using data on YOUR machine which you are actively providing them access to you become (under the law) a Controller/Processor (as does ANet for making this information available in the client) which gives you both a level of legal liability as well.

A user could literally SUE you and ArcDPS for processing that data.

To clarify things further, the definition of processing is as follows:

"any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction;"

so ArcDPS are : collecting, recording, organising, structuring, retrieving, consulting, disclosing by transmission, & disseminating or otherwise making available.

There is zero question as to whether or not ArcDPS are processing personal data - they very clearly are and equally clearly have zero legal basis to do so. It is arguable that ANet should not even be broadcasting this data to your client without the consent of the data subjects - it is not required in any way in order for you to play the game.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

I am absolutely amazed of the scale that such tool as DPS meter can be consider in the context of law. I think it is even more urgent now for ArenaNet to review this case and change the policy, so players are in power of their privacy within the game. Again, every one of us agreed to terms and conditions of the game provided by ArenaNet. But I never agreed and refuse to agree to whatever terms and conditions Deltaconnected provides (I'm sure he doesn't) especially that ArenaNet takes no responsibility for any damage caused by this tool. This is why I am now even more confident it is important to make sure that players can't be monitored by this tool without their consent, especially when they do not use it and play on vanilla GW2 client.

[Paladine.6082]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

is the user identified in the data, or is that what you are saying)? a character name is not identifying a user for example.> @Taygus.4571 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

If someone can do it on their personal time ..I'm sure it wouldn't take long for an anet employee to incorporate something similar.

Profression developers have different quality gates, did the publisher of the private meter write appropriate unit or automation tests etc etc. that aside thre is still no demand for it, in fact quite the opposite.

ANY data which can be used to single out a data subject from a crowd (whether that be a Unique ID, a Social Security Number, a name, a pseudonym, an IP address, a MAC address - literally -anything- used for identification purposes) is classed as personal data. The username is absolutely an identifier - not only is it an identifier it is a direct identifier. It doesn't need to identify someone's user account, it only needs to single out the user and a username does exactly that. It is without question that a username is legally classified as personal data.

User name is not an identifier of a person, it is a public identifer for a computer character is it not? If you can derive who the real person is from that character name then that is a different issue.

1. Can a living individual be identified from the data, or,from the data and other information your possession,or likely to come into your possession?Yes Go to question 2.No The data is not personal data for the purposes of the ..

No.A UID in a cookie cannot identify you by name as a living person - it can single you out from others. UID are explicitly recognised under European Law as personal dataAn IP address cannot identify you as a living person (espcially if there are multiple people who use the same machine) but under European Law it is explicitly defined as personal dataA phone number cannot identify you by name unless paired with other informationA social security number cannot identify you by name unless paired with other informationI could go on and on - all of the above are classed as personal information - a username is classed as personal information. you are welcome to take your chances on this in any court in Europe, but I would suggest you don't waste your money, because you will definitely lose. This is an incredibly mature debate here in Europe with decades of case law supporting it.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Paladine.6082 said:Incorrect again, read the entire post or go get a law degree - you are so far off on this it is embarrassing.

Your dps is not personal data though.

"Personal data is any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address"Link: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-46_en.htm?locale=en

Where is the amount of DPS you are doing on that list? I'm waiting you to post a link to at least one law that CLEARLY states that the amount of damage you are doing in a video game is personal data. Until then you are posting nonsense.

[OnizukaBR.8537]

Your character is not your property. If arena net decide to shut down guild wars 2, they can and you lose acess to it. So if your character is not your property then anything related to it is not private information.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

is the user identified in the data, or is that what you are saying)? a character name is not identifying a user for example.> @Taygus.4571 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

If someone can do it on their personal time ..I'm sure it wouldn't take long for an anet employee to incorporate something similar.

Profression developers have different quality gates, did the publisher of the private meter write appropriate unit or automation tests etc etc. that aside thre is still no demand for it, in fact quite the opposite.

ANY data which can be used to single out a data subject from a crowd (whether that be a Unique ID, a Social Security Number, a name, a pseudonym, an IP address, a MAC address - literally -anything- used for identification purposes) is classed as personal data. The username is absolutely an identifier - not only is it an identifier it is a direct identifier. It doesn't need to identify someone's user account, it only needs to single out the user and a username does exactly that. It is without question that a username is legally classified as personal data.

User name is not an identifier of a person, it is a public identifer for a computer character is it not? If you can derive who the real person is from that character name then that is a different issue.

1. Can a living individual be identified from the data, or,from the data and other information your possession,or likely to come into your possession?Yes Go to question 2.No The data is not personal data for the purposes of the ..

No.A UID in a cookie cannot identify you by name as a living person - it can single you out from others. UID are explicitly recognised under European Law as personal dataAn IP address cannot identify you as a living person (espcially if there are multiple people who use the same machine) but under European Law it is explicitly defined as personal dataA phone number cannot identify you by name unless paired with other informationA social security number cannot identify you by name unless paired with other informationI could go on and on - all of the above are classed as personal information - a username is classed as personal information. you are welcome to take your chances on this in any court in Europe, but I would suggest you don't waste your money, because you will definitely lose. This is an incredibly mature debate here in Europe with decades of case law supporting it.

really just professionally curious now :) a piece of data is only considered personal data when it is evaluated within context or where it can be moved to a context where the identification can take place. The name john smith is not personal data, the name john smith within a context may be personal data. Same applies to user identifiers, theres a thousand accounts called John.Smith.xxxxx, without context to further identify it is not personal data (but it potentially is)

[MarkoNS.3261]

a dps meter is quite the useful tool to see who is performing bad, it is not fair to the other 4 or 9 people in a group if 1 person is bad and drags the group down. i would go even further have inspect by default and filters for bad players so we dont have to deal with them.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@MarkoNS.3261 said:a dps meter is quite the useful tool to see who is performing bad, it is not fair to the other 4 or 9 people in a group if 1 person is bad and drags the group down. i would go even further have inspect by default and filters for bad players so we dont have to deal with them.

in your head because you see performance as more imortant than other elements of gameplay. 'drag down' 'carry', 'underperforming' , 'they are noobs' 'bad players' its all the same, negative evaluation of other real players based on your mental picture of what is good.

if you were playing with a group of players in your home on a cooperative board game, would you need to evaluate and 'deal' with poor players?

[Paladine.6082]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:Incorrect again, read the entire post or go get a law degree - you are so far off on this it is embarrassing.

Your dps is not personal data though.

"Personal data is any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address"Link:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-46_en.htm?locale=en

Where is the amount of DPS you are doing on that list? I'm waiting you to post a link to at least one law that CLEARLY states that the amount of damage you are doing in a video game is personal data. Until then you are posting nonsense.

The DPS itself isn't - putting your username next to it is. If the was aggregated or did not name you then it would be fine (but would be useless for its intended purpose).

[Paladine.6082]

@OnizukaBR.8537 said:Your character is not your property. If arena net decide to shut down guild wars 2, they can and you lose acess to it. So if your character is not your property then anything related to it is not private information.

That makes no sense legally. The New York Times is not my property but data on how I use it is personal data as established by case law all over the world, not just the EU.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:Incorrect again, read the entire post or go get a law degree - you are so far off on this it is embarrassing.

Your dps is not personal data though.

"Personal data is any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address"Link:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-46_en.htm?locale=en

Where is the amount of DPS you are doing on that list? I'm waiting you to post a link to at least one law that CLEARLY states that the amount of damage you are doing in a video game is personal data. Until then you are posting nonsense.

The DPS itself isn't - putting your username next to it is. If the was aggregated or did not name you then it would be fine (but would be useless for its intended purpose).

A username with no means of linking to identifying context is just a public identifier.

[OnizukaBR.8537]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@OnizukaBR.8537 said:Your character is not your property. If arena net decide to shut down guild wars 2, they can and you lose acess to it. So if your character is not your property then anything related to it is not private information.

That makes no sense legally. The New York Times is not my property but data on how I use it is personal data as established by case law all over the world, not just the EU.

So go ahead take to a judge your character as personal data and see he laughing at you. If arenanet wanted to delete your character right now they could, this is just how much power and ownership of your character you have.

[Paladine.6082]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

is the user identified in the data, or is that what you are saying)? a character name is not identifying a user for example.> @Taygus.4571 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

If someone can do it on their personal time ..I'm sure it wouldn't take long for an anet employee to incorporate something similar.

Profression developers have different quality gates, did the publisher of the private meter write appropriate unit or automation tests etc etc. that aside thre is still no demand for it, in fact quite the opposite.

ANY data which can be used to single out a data subject from a crowd (whether that be a Unique ID, a Social Security Number, a name, a pseudonym, an IP address, a MAC address - literally -anything- used for identification purposes) is classed as personal data. The username is absolutely an identifier - not only is it an identifier it is a direct identifier. It doesn't need to identify someone's user account, it only needs to single out the user and a username does exactly that. It is without question that a username is legally classified as personal data.

User name is not an identifier of a person, it is a public identifer for a computer character is it not? If you can derive who the real person is from that character name then that is a different issue.

1. Can a living individual be identified from the data, or,from the data and other information your possession,or likely to come into your possession?Yes Go to question 2.No The data is not personal data for the purposes of the ..

No.A UID in a cookie cannot identify you by name as a living person - it can single you out from others. UID are explicitly recognised under European Law as personal dataAn IP address cannot identify you as a living person (espcially if there are multiple people who use the same machine) but under European Law it is explicitly defined as personal dataA phone number cannot identify you by name unless paired with other informationA social security number cannot identify you by name unless paired with other informationI could go on and on - all of the above are classed as personal information - a username is classed as personal information. you are welcome to take your chances on this in any court in Europe, but I would suggest you don't waste your money, because you will definitely lose. This is an incredibly mature debate here in Europe with decades of case law supporting it.

really just professionally curious now :) a piece of data is only considered personal data when it is evaluated within context or where it can be moved to a context where the identification can take place. The name john smith is not personal data, the name john smith within a context may be personal data. Same applies to user identifiers, theres a thousand accounts called John.Smith.xxxxx, without context to further identify it is not personal data (but it potentially is)

Whether or not John Smith is considered personal data is determined by how it is used. If you just use John Smith in a sentence then no it is probably not personal data (unless other parts of the sentence make it so) however if you use John Smith as data relating to an individual it is personal data. Most data bases do not use names as identifiers or keys (they use UIDs) but all the information within the database relating to that specific UID is personal data including the name.

Personal data does not have to identify someone it just has to be related to an identified or identifiable someone - this is a common misinterpretation people make. Anything I do in my private life (including playing a game and any data which is generated as a result of playing that game which is directly or indirectly related to me as an individual (doesnt apply to aggregated or anonymised data) is personal data and protected from processing under law).

[Bladestrom.6425]

this forum is a perfect example, i can see vesica tempestas.1563, this is not personal data.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@Coconut.7082 said:

@Panda.1967 said:

@Nowaki.2136 said:To be honest i dont see how making a calculation of the damage ON A PARTY BOSS is invading your privacity, since the boss is public to the party, another topic would be to know exactly how YOU that one party member who wants to hide his dps DID that damage, wich is something it CANT do, but since the boss is open to the whole party is not privacy in terms of the damage dealt to it.

To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing the claims that ArcDPS estimates other party members damage based on damage taken to the boss that was not from the players using the meter.

Let me explain why.

If it truely does estimate damage in that fashion, then every player in a party who has no meter should logically be recorded as doing the same exact damage. If you're in a party of 5 players, and only 2 of them have meters, if an enemy takes 12k damage that is not sourced from one of the players using a meter, then the 3 without a meter should be recorded as having each done 4k damage. But this is most certainly not the case. It has been made quite clear over and over again, that each individual party member has their own recorded values for DPS regardless of if they have a meter themselves or not. In open world content this is even more evident. The meters are able to assign values to everyone participating in the event, which means that the meter is capable of obtaining data on individuals. It's not estimating. It may not be able to source the damage to individual attacks, but it certainly is able to source the damage to individual players.

There are no "claims", just facts.ArcDPS does not estimate damage of a player only by damage on the boss, your game client receives data about the other players in your party, you simply can't normally see it.Most of DPS is not estimated, it's calculated from the received game data, some skills/effects that are not properly shown by the client have to be estimated (move visible on Condition builds).My explanation could be slightly off because I never bothered to check exactly how it works, but if you want to know more, you are welcome to read about it on the meter's page (none of the calculations/methods are kept secret), or god forbid, try it yourself.With all that, the combat data your client generates is not considered personal by Anet, thus letting the meter use it for a party/squad is fine.

Consider looking into how things really work, before against them on the forum.

Whether it is considered as personal by Anet or not is irrelevant - under the law (at least in Europe) personal data is defined explicitly as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - given that the user is identified in the data it is inarguable whether or not this is personal data, it clearly is. Furthermore, even if it did not include the identification of the damage dealer (which would make the DPS meter utterly pointless for it specified purpose) by analysing the data over time, one could profile individual users based on their damage patterns which would enable them to be identified (under law identified doesn't mean know their name - it merely means being able to recognise someone in a crowd - or single them out based on data).

So in this regard, I would argue that technically (and legally) it is not ANet's place to define what is and what is not personal data - that is a matter of law over which they have no authority to redefine.

is the user identified in the data, or is that what you are saying)? a character name is not identifying a user for example.> @Taygus.4571 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:My only problem, is that if Anet is ok-ing this. ..it should be easily available to everyone, in the options menu.

That would mean building something that the majority of the player base does no care about - new weapons/skills/classes/pvp maps/new instances would be better value.

If someone can do it on their personal time ..I'm sure it wouldn't take long for an anet employee to incorporate something similar.

Profression developers have different quality gates, did the publisher of the private meter write appropriate unit or automation tests etc etc. that aside thre is still no demand for it, in fact quite the opposite.

ANY data which can be used to single out a data subject from a crowd (whether that be a Unique ID, a Social Security Number, a name, a pseudonym, an IP address, a MAC address - literally -anything- used for identification purposes) is classed as personal data. The username is absolutely an identifier - not only is it an identifier it is a direct identifier. It doesn't need to identify someone's user account, it only needs to single out the user and a username does exactly that. It is without question that a username is legally classified as personal data.

User name is not an identifier of a person, it is a public identifer for a computer character is it not? If you can derive who the real person is from that character name then that is a different issue.

1. Can a living individual be identified from the data, or,from the data and other information your possession,or likely to come into your possession?Yes Go to question 2.No The data is not personal data for the purposes of the ..

No.A UID in a cookie cannot identify you by name as a living person - it can single you out from others. UID are explicitly recognised under European Law as personal dataAn IP address cannot identify you as a living person (espcially if there are multiple people who use the same machine) but under European Law it is explicitly defined as personal dataA phone number cannot identify you by name unless paired with other informationA social security number cannot identify you by name unless paired with other informationI could go on and on - all of the above are classed as personal information - a username is classed as personal information. you are welcome to take your chances on this in any court in Europe, but I would suggest you don't waste your money, because you will definitely lose. This is an incredibly mature debate here in Europe with decades of case law supporting it.

really just professionally curious now :) a piece of data is only considered personal data when it is evaluated within context or where it can be moved to a context where the identification can take place. The name john smith is not personal data, the name john smith within a context may be personal data. Same applies to user identifiers, theres a thousand accounts called John.Smith.xxxxx, without context to further identify it is not personal data (but it potentially is)

Whether or not John Smith is considered personal data is determined by how it is used. If you just use John Smith in a sentence then no it is probably not personal data (unless other parts of the sentence make it so) however if you use John Smith as data relating to an individual it is personal data. Most data bases do not use names as identifiers or keys (they use UIDs) but all the information within the database relating to that specific UID is personal data including the name.

Personal data does not have to identify someone it just has to be related to an identified or identifiable someone - this is a common misinterpretation people make. Anything I do in my private life (including playing a game and any data which is generated as a result of playing that game which is directly or indirectly related to me as an individual (doesnt apply to aggregated or anonymised data) is personal data and protected from processing under law.

yup thats what i meant by context. e.g our user names in this forum and damage meters, which are clearly not personal data.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:Incorrect again, read the entire post or go get a law degree - you are so far off on this it is embarrassing.

Your dps is not personal data though.

"Personal data is any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address"Link:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-46_en.htm?locale=en

Where is the amount of DPS you are doing on that list? I'm waiting you to post a link to at least one law that CLEARLY states that the amount of damage you are doing in a video game is personal data. Until then you are posting nonsense.

The DPS itself isn't - putting your username next to it is. If the was aggregated or did not name you then it would be fine (but would be useless for its intended purpose).

I already know your username, in order for the meter to work you MUST be in the same squad/party. I ALREADY know your character name, your username, the number of AP, the number of Mastery Points and if you did map completion or not. All the meter does is assign a NUMBER, that is in no way or form personal information, next to your username. It's not used to identify you, I already know you. So please try again.

[Paladine.6082]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:this forum is a perfect example, i can see vesica tempestas.1563, this is not personal data.

It absolutely is personal data.

[Paladine.6082]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:Incorrect again, read the entire post or go get a law degree - you are so far off on this it is embarrassing.

Your dps is not personal data though.

"Personal data is any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address"Link:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-46_en.htm?locale=en

Where is the amount of DPS you are doing on that list? I'm waiting you to post a link to at least one law that CLEARLY states that the amount of damage you are doing in a video game is personal data. Until then you are posting nonsense.

The DPS itself isn't - putting your username next to it is. If the was aggregated or did not name you then it would be fine (but would be useless for its intended purpose).

I already know your username, in order for the meter to work you MUST be in the same squad/party. I ALREADY know your character name, your username, the number of AP, the number of Mastery Points and if you did map completion or not. All the meter does is assign a NUMBER, that is in no way or form personal information, next to your username. It's not used to identify you, I already know you. So please try again.

Information that I am actively aware that I am presenting that you can see is not the issue in dispute here - what is in dispute is information your are collecting over which I have no control, in most cases no knowledge (there is no way for me to know you are using a DPS meter), for which I have given no consent and for which I can not prevent the processing of because you do not provide subject access rights. From a purely legal perspective the use of the DPS meter constitutes the processing of personal data for which you have no legal basis - I have made it very clear why that is the case - the fact you choose to ignore it does not make it any less valid or change the facts no matter how many different ways you try to make up scenarios to invalidate it. the law is the law and the matters in this issue are quite clear from a legal perspective.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:this forum is a perfect example, i can see vesica tempestas.1563, this is not personal data.

It absolutely is personal data.

No it is not, it is a public identifier for an account, not a living person. If I sold my account to another person for example the account name would be the same, it is not a living person.

Can a living individual be identified from the data, or,

from the data and other information in yourpossession, or likely to come into your possession?Yes Go to question 2.No The data is not personal data for the purposes ofthe DPA

[Ohoni.6057]

I would go a step further than the OP and say that you should never be able to monitor other player's DPS, they should not even have the option of consenting, because if that's an option, then players would cull other players for not providing consent, and then we're right back where we started. Just remove the toxicity entirely. Allow players to monitor their own performance so that they can improve their own game, but they have no reason to know what someone else's DPS is, and if they want to know, they can ask (and the other player can lie if they so choose).

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Ohoni.6057 said:I would go a step further than the OP and say that you should never be able to monitor other player's DPS, they should not even have the option of consenting, because if that's an option, then players would cull other players for not providing consent, and then we're right back where we started. Just remove the toxicity entirely. Allow players to monitor their own performance so that they can improve their own game, but they have no reason to know what someone else's DPS is, and if they want to know, they can ask (and the other player can lie if they so choose).

Agree with this, you can monitor your own performance, and if you want to play with other people learn to trust your team mates, its a game.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Ohoni.6057 said:I would go a step further than the OP and say that you should

never

be able to monitor other player's DPS, they should not even have the option of consenting, because if that's an option, then players would cull other players for not providing consent, and then we're right back where we started. Just remove the toxicity entirely. Allow players to monitor their own performance so that they can improve their own game, but they have no reason to know what someone else's DPS is, and if they want to know, they can ask (and the other player can lie if they so choose).

Agree with this, you can monitor your own performance, and if you want to play with other people learn to trust your team mates, its a game.

This goes both ways. Why don't you trust me without me sharing my numbers?

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Ohoni.6057 said:I would go a step further than the OP and say that you should

never

be able to monitor other player's DPS, they should not even have the option of consenting, because if that's an option, then players would cull other players for not providing consent, and then we're right back where we started. Just remove the toxicity entirely. Allow players to monitor their own performance so that they can improve their own game, but they have no reason to know what someone else's DPS is, and if they want to know, they can ask (and the other player can lie if they so choose).

Agree with this, you can monitor your own performance, and if you want to play with other people learn to trust your team mates, its a game.

This goes both ways. Why don't you trust me without me sharing my numbers?

that doesnt make sense.

[Coconut.7082]

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:this forum is a perfect example, i can see vesica tempestas.1563, this is not personal data.

It absolutely is personal data.

Lol dude, what is that absolute pile of crap you are posting?Why are you wasting so much time trying to act as some lawyer here... Don't you think that something officially approved by Anet was tested for all those stuff? Don't you think that they know better how their data is processing, and how ArcDPS uses it (since they make sure to check every new feature with the developer, before approving)?

FYI, the Conditions / effects appearing on a foe have a character name attached to them, as well as the Boons on your bar, is that invading your privacy too?Sue them!

I don't even care if what the OP asks for happens or not, it doesn't affect me much, but this post is just getting ridiculous.

[Paladine.6082]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Paladine.6082 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:this forum is a perfect example, i can see vesica tempestas.1563, this is not personal data.

It absolutely is personal data.

No it is not, it is a public identifier for an account, not a living person. If I sold my account to another person for example the account name would be the same, it is not a living person.

Can a living individual be identified from the data, or,

from the data and other information in yourpossession, or likely to come into your possession?Yes Go to question 2.

No

The data is not personal data for the purposes ofthe DPA

Incorrect - the username can be associated with a living person it is associated with you - even if you sell it it can still still be associated with a living person - just a different living person in that context and time but still only a single person. And given you are quoting the information from ICO (I am guessing given the reference to DPA) and the UK are under infringement proceedings from the European Commission for failing to correctly interpret 95/46/EC into UK law specifically on what is considered personal information, it hardly makes for a good source. The UK DPA is in breach of EU law lol.

Identifiers get re-used ALL THE TIME - phone numbers are re-provisioned, IP addresses change, addresses change occupants etc. - they don't suddenly cease to be identifiers.