The small print
Privacy Policy
- From
- Galeforce Hosting Ltd, trading as Galeforce
- Effective from
Contents
1. Who is responsible for your data
Galeforce Hosting Ltd is the data controller.
Company number 17542989. Registered office: 22 Bluecoat Close, Nottingham, NG1 4DP, United Kingdom.
Privacy questions: support@galeforcehosting.net.
We do not have a Data Protection Officer; the law does not require one for a company like ours. Our director is responsible for data protection.
2. The short version
- We collect what we need to run your server, bill you and keep the service safe. If you say yes, we also count visits to our public pages with Google Analytics (section 7).
- We do not sell your data or use it to advertise to you. We use analytics cookies only if you say yes, only on our public pages, and never in the panel. We keep a few small notes in your browser so the site works as you expect (for example, that you have seen a notice, or that the age screen asked you to wait); they never leave your browser and are not used to track you.
- Card details go to Stripe. We never see or store your card number.
- Your game files are yours. We look at them only to run the service or when you ask for help.
3. What we collect, and why
| Data | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | WhyTo sign you in (we send a link) and to send the emails the service and the law require: receipts, renewal reminders, confirmation when you cancel, and warnings before your files are deleted | Legal basisContract and legal obligation (consumer law) |
| Discord or Google account ID and avatar, if you sign in that way (not the name you use there) | WhyTo sign you in. We need a verified email from the provider | Legal basisContract |
| Your display name: "Player" and a number, unless you choose one | WhyShown to the other members of your servers. If you offer to set up a server someone asked you for, they see it, with your email address partly hidden (all of it if you signed in with the address they gave us) | Legal basisContract; legitimate interests if you are 13 to 17 (below); legitimate interest (child safety) for what a requester sees about you |
| Your age, as the date you turn 18 (or that you already have), and when you told us. You type your date of birth in your browser; it is never sent to us | WhySo that only adults become customers, and to refuse under-13s | Legal basisLegitimate interest (child safety, and making contracts only with adults) |
| If someone answers that they are under 13: a coded copy of the email address they signed in with, and of the network (IP) address they answered from | WhySo that the age question can't be answered again straight away with another date | Legal basisLegitimate interest (child safety) |
| A server you ask an adult to set up: its name, game, size and settings, and the adult's email address you give us | WhyTo send that adult your request and let them take the server on | Legal basisLegitimate interest (yours, and the adult's in being asked) |
| A concern you report to us: what you write, and the server it is about if you name one | WhySo a person can look into it and keep members safe | Legal basisLegitimate interest (child safety); contract if you are an adult customer |
| Country, plus the evidence for it: the country you chose, your card's issuing country, your billing-address country, the country your IP address is in | WhyTo show the right price and currency, and to keep records of where we sell | Legal basisContract and legitimate interest |
| IP address and browser type | WhySign-in rate limits, security logs, an activity log on your server, country evidence | Legal basisLegitimate interest (security and fraud prevention) |
| A campaign name, if the link that brought you to us carried one (for example from a creator we work with or one of our adverts). It is a short label such as "launch" or a creator's code, the same for everyone who used that link. It is not your IP address, your device or the page you came from | WhyTo count which channels bring people to us and what they go on to buy, and to credit a creator whose link you used | Legal basisLegitimate interests (knowing which of our channels work, and paying creators what we owe them). You can object at any time and we will delete it |
| If you say yes to Google Analytics, on our public pages only: the addresses of the pages you visit there (with the campaign name, if the link that brought you carried one), the page that sent you, how long you stay, how far you scroll and which links you follow; your device type, browser, screen size and language; and your rough location, which Google works out from your IP address | WhyTo count visits, and to see which pages help and which links bring people to us (section 7) | Legal basisConsent. You can withdraw it at any time: "Cookie settings" at the foot of our public pages, then "Essential only" |
| Payments: what you bought, when, how much, the payment method type, and for every card payment the card brand and last four digits ("Visa ••4242"), the card's issuing country, and a card fingerprint (Stripe's code for recognising the same card, used for fraud checks) | WhyTo bill you, renew your passes, refund you, keep accounts, and spot fraud | Legal basisContract and legal obligation (tax and company records); legitimate interest (fraud prevention) for the card fingerprint |
| A Stripe customer ID and the ID of the card you saved | WhySo Stripe can take your renewals. Created only when you choose a pass that renews | Legal basisContract |
| Your game server files, settings and console output | WhyTo run your server | Legal basisContract |
| Support tickets and emails you send us | WhyTo help you | Legal basisContract |
| A record of what our staff do on your account: who, what, when and the reason they gave | WhyTo keep our staff accountable, and to sort out disputes | Legal basisLegitimate interest (security and accountability) |
When you download your server's files or bring in a world, the files pass between your browser and your server through our systems. We don't keep a copy or the file's name. When an import replaces a world, the old world stays on your server for 7 days so you can undo it, then it is deleted.
We do not collect: your real name (unless you tell us in a support message), your address, your phone number, your card number.
You need to give us an email address and your country to buy; without them we cannot sell you a pass.
If you are 13 to 17. We do not make a contract with anyone under 18, so for your data we do not rely on "contract". We rely on legitimate interests: letting you sign in and help run a server an adult has invited you to, and keeping that safe. That covers your email, your sign-in identity, your display name, your role on each server and what you do on it. We have weighed this against your interests and given them extra weight, as the ICO asks for children. We never use your data for marketing, profiling or advertising. You can object at any time by emailing support@galeforcehosting.net, or close your account yourself in the panel: either way we take you off the servers you belong to and delete your account.
4. Children
Our customers are adults. People aged 13 to 17 can sign in and help run a server that an adult owns and has invited them to, or ask an adult to set one up. When an adult offers to set up a server you asked for, we show you their display name and their email address (partly hidden, unless it is the address you gave us), and nothing is set up or paid for unless you say yes. If you tell us you don't know them, we record it as a concern and a member of our team looks into it. Under-13s cannot have an account.
When you first sign in we ask your date of birth. It stays in your browser: we store only the date you turn 18 (or that you already have), worked out from it, and when you told us. That date is personal data, and we treat it as such. If you are under 13, we delete the sign-in you just made: the account, its email address and its session. So that the question can't simply be answered again with another date, we keep two things for a short time, only in our system's working memory and never on disk: a coded copy of the email address for 24 hours, and a coded copy of the network (IP) address you answered from for 1 hour. They are coded with a key that is never written down and changes whenever our system restarts, so they can't be turned back into the addresses, and they are cleared within an hour of the time running out. If a new account with that email address gives its age within 24 hours, or a new account made on that network gives its age within the hour, we delete that account too and ask them to try again later. We count how often this happens each day, as a number with nothing about who, and delete those counts after 12 months. Two other short-lived records are left and expire on their own: our web server's access log (your IP address, 14 days) and our email provider's record that a sign-in email was sent. If an existing account turns out to belong to someone under 13, we close it and delete everything except the payment records the law makes us keep. With those records we keep the account's age record (the date its holder turns 18 and when we were told), because that is what keeps the account closed.
For members under 18 everything is private by default: no public profiles, no social features, no advertising, no marketing emails, no profiling, and nothing sold. Everyone on a server can see its members' display names and roles. Anyone whose role on the server lets them use the console, files or settings can see them, and the owner can see whether a member is under 18. The owner sees a member's email address only if the member is an adult, or if the owner typed that address into the member's invite. We also keep a log of what each member does on a server, for safety and support; it is not shown in the panel and is deleted after 90 days. We tell you this when you accept an invite, and every page of a server shows each member who on it can see what they do there. If a link brought you to us with a campaign name, we delete that name as soon as you tell us you are under 18.
You can report a concern about anyone on a server from the panel. Our team reads every report, but not straight away: we are not an emergency service. If you or someone else is in danger right now, call 999 in the UK or 911 in the US.
We have assessed the risks to members under 18 in a data protection impact assessment, as the ICO's Children's code asks.
If you are a parent and think your child under 13 has an account, email us and we will delete it. If you or a parent tell us the age on an account is wrong, we correct it. Our staff log keeps a note that we did, with the age group before and after (under 13, 13 to 17, or 18 and over). It never holds a date of birth or the date you turn 18.
5. Who we share data with
We use a few companies to run the service. They work for us and may only use your data to do that.
| Who | What they do | What they see | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe (Stripe Payments Europe Ltd, Stripe Payments UK Ltd and Stripe, LLC) | What they doTakes payments, saves cards for renewals, detects fraud | What they seePayment and card details, email, billing country, IP address | WhereUK, EU, US and other countries where Stripe operates |
| OVH (OVHcloud) | What they doRents us the servers the website and control plane run on, and the London address players' connections pass through | What they seeEverything stored on those servers; players' connections | WhereUnited Kingdom |
| Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc.) | What they doDNS for galeforcehosting.net, and passing on the emails you send to support@galeforcehosting.net to our inbox | What they seeWhich domain names are looked up; the emails you send us (your address and your message) | WhereGlobal |
| Google (Google LLC) | What they doOur support inbox (Gmail), where emails you send us arrive. Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager, if you say yes to it on our public pages (section 7) | What they seeThe emails you send us. With your yes, how you use our public pages | WhereUnited States and other countries where Google operates |
| Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.) | What they doSends our emails (sign-in links, receipts, reminders) | What they seeYour email address and the email's contents | WhereUnited States; emails are sent from Ireland |
Game servers run on hardware we operate ourselves, in the United Kingdom.
Outside the UK. Some of these providers handle your data outside the UK. UK law treats the European Economic Area as giving adequate protection. For the United States and anywhere else, we rely on the UK-US data bridge where the provider is certified under it, and otherwise on the UK's International Data Transfer Addendum. You can ask us at support@galeforcehosting.net for a copy of those safeguards.
Fraud checks. Stripe checks each payment for signs of fraud. If it flags a payment as likely fraud we may put your account on hold. A member of our team reviews every hold, and you can ask us to review it again.
We share data with nobody else, except:
- the police or a regulator, when the law requires it or to report a crime,
- our accountant or auditor, for the money records only,
- a buyer, if the company is ever sold (we would tell you first).
6. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Your account (email, sign-in identities, country) | Kept forWhile you have an account, then deleted within 30 days of you closing it |
| Your age record (the date you turn 18, when you told us, and when we corrected it) | Kept forWhile you have an account, then deleted with it. One exception: if an account is closed because its holder is under 13 and the law makes us keep its payment records, the age record stays with those records, because it is what keeps the account closed. A staff note that a correction happened, with the age group before and after (no date), is kept with our staff log |
| After an under-13 answer: a coded copy of the email address, and a coded copy of the network address it came from | Kept for24 hours (email) and 1 hour (network address), in working memory only; never written to disk, and lost sooner if our system restarts |
| Daily counts of new accounts refused under that rule (a number, nothing about who) | Kept for12 months, then deleted |
| A campaign name on your account | Kept forWhile you have an account. Deleted at once if you tell us you are under 18, if you object, or when the account is closed |
| A new sign-in where no age was ever given (and nothing else was done) | Kept forDeleted 24 hours after it was made |
| A server you asked an adult to set up, with the adult's email | Kept forThe adult's email is deleted as soon as the request expires (7 days after you send it), is taken on, declined or cancelled. A keyed, scrambled form of it (used only to limit how many requests one address gets) and the rest of the request are deleted 30 days later |
| An invite to a server (the email address it was sent to, the role, who sent it) | Kept forUntil it is accepted, cancelled or runs out (7 days), then deleted 30 days later |
| Sign-in sessions | Kept for30 days at most, 7 days if unused |
| Sign-in link tokens | Kept forThey work for 15 minutes and are deleted a day after they stop working |
| IP addresses in the server activity log, and the in-game name or game ID of a player acted on from the panel | Kept for90 days, then deleted |
Our web server's access log (your IP address, your browser type and the page you asked for, without anything after a ?) | Kept for14 days, then deleted |
| Game server files | Kept forUntil 30 days after your last pass ends, then deleted. You get an email 48 hours before |
| Purchases, receipts, refunds, country evidence and tax records | Kept for6 years after the end of the accounting period they fall in, to meet our tax and company-record duties. Your email stays attached to them for that long |
| What you agreed to at checkout (whether you chose a pass that renews, which version of the checkout you saw, and when) and the renewal emails we sent you | Kept forKept with your purchase records, for the same 6 years |
| Support tickets | Kept forWhile you have an account, then deleted when you close it. A concern you report is kept longer: see the next row. |
| A concern you report to us | Kept for12 months after we close the report, even if you close your account first or we close it because its holder is under 13, so that we can keep other members safe and answer the police or a court if they ask. Then deleted |
| Our staff log (what staff did on an account, when and why) | Kept for6 years. It names the account by its ID |
| Payment-dispute records | Kept for6 years, as above |
When you close your account we delete what we can. We keep a concern you reported (section 6) and what the law makes us keep.
7. Cookies
We use these cookies:
| Cookie | Set by | What it does | How long | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
galeforce_session | Set byUs | What it doesKeeps you signed in | How long30 days, or until you sign out | BasisStrictly necessary |
galeforce_oauth_state | Set byUs | What it doesProtects a Discord or Google sign-in from forgery while it happens | How long10 minutes | BasisStrictly necessary |
galeforce_consent | Set byUs | What it doesRemembers your answer to our cookie question, so the banner asks once | How long6 months, then we ask again | BasisStrictly necessary |
_ga | Set byGoogle (Google Analytics) | What it doesA random number that tells one visitor's visits apart | How longUp to 6 months, or until you say no | BasisYour consent |
_ga_ followed by a code | Set byGoogle (Google Analytics) | What it doesKeeps track of your current visit. Google Analytics counts the visit with the campaign name from the page's address (its utm_ parts), if the link that brought you carried one | How longUp to 6 months, or until you say no | BasisYour consent |
The first three are strictly necessary for the service, so under PECR we do not need your consent for them. The two _ga cookies are not, so they rest on your consent: Google's code sets them on our site's own domain, only on our public pages and only after you press Accept.
Google Analytics, only if you say yes. On our public pages, a banner asks whether you accept. It never appears, and Google Analytics never runs, in the panel, at sign-in, or on the legal pages we send members aged 13 to 17 to. Until you press Accept, neither Google Tag Manager nor Google Analytics loads, and neither sets a cookie. If you accept, your browser loads Google Tag Manager, Google's code that starts Google Analytics. Tag Manager sets no cookie of its own; when your browser fetches it, Google's servers receive your IP address and browser type, as any website's servers do. Google Analytics counts visits so we can see which pages help. It collects the addresses of the pages you visit on our public site (with the campaign name, if the link that brought you carried one: see the end of this section), the page that sent you there, how long you stay, how far you scroll and which links you follow; your device type, browser, screen size and language; and your rough location (country and town), which Google works out from your IP address. Google says it does not store the IP address itself. It does not get your name, your email or anything from the panel. We have turned off Google signals and Google's advertising features, and we send no user ID, so it does not link your visits to a Google account.
Google processes this data for us, under its data processing terms. It is sent to Google in the United States (section 5 says how we protect data sent there). Google deletes the detailed records after 2 months. We keep only totals, such as visits per page, which say nothing about you.
Changing your mind. Press "Cookie settings" at the foot of any page of our public site, then "Essential only". That stops Google Analytics straight away and deletes its cookies from your browser. You can also clear cookies in your browser's settings. Whatever you choose, we ask again after 6 months.
Advertising cookies. We use none. If we ever add them, we will use them only if you allow them, and never if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal.
When you pay, the card form on our page is run by Stripe, and Stripe sets its own cookies there to prevent fraud. Stripe's code runs only on the payment step. No other company's code runs on our site unless you say yes to Google Analytics (above) or load it yourself (next paragraph), and until you do, no company collects information about what you do across other websites through our site.
Steam and YouTube load only when you click. A game's page can show Steam's own box for the game (its price and buy button) and the publisher's trailer on YouTube. Neither loads until you click its button, so until then nothing on the page comes from Steam (Valve) or YouTube (Google). Once you click, your browser fetches it from that company's servers: from then on the company receives your IP address and may set its own cookies or keep other data in your browser, under its own privacy policy. Steam sets a cookie as soon as its box loads. YouTube's player keeps items in your browser's storage and contacts other Google servers as soon as it loads, before you press play. We play trailers in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, and we receive nothing from either company about you.
Your browser also keeps a few small notes on your own device (localStorage). They are never sent to us or to anyone else:
- whether you chose the light or the dark theme, so the site looks the way you set it,
- the country you picked on the pricing page, so prices stay in your currency,
- which servers you have seen the members notice for, so it is not shown again,
- if the age screen asked you to wait, the time the wait ends. This is a time only; your date of birth is never stored.
You can clear them at any time in your browser's settings. The only other companies that can set cookies or keep data in your browser through our site are Google, for Google Analytics if you say yes, Stripe, on the payment step, and Steam or YouTube after you click to load their content. If that changes, we will update this page and ask for consent first. We do not track you across other websites, so a "Do Not Track" signal from your browser changes nothing: there is nothing to switch off.
Links to our site (from a creator we work with or one of our adverts, for example) may carry a campaign name in the address. We read it from the address when the page is requested; we do not store anything on your device for it. If you have said yes to Google Analytics, Google Analytics also reads the campaign name from the page's address on our public pages, to count which links bring visitors. That use rests on your consent, and stops when you choose "Essential only".
8. Security
- Sign-in is by one-time email link or OAuth. There are no passwords to steal.
- Session tokens and sign-in links are stored hashed.
- Logs record user IDs, never emails or tokens.
- Card details never touch our servers; Stripe handles them.
- Game servers run in isolated containers inside a virtual machine, separated from our control systems.
- Traffic between our edge and our hardware is encrypted (WireGuard).
If we have a data breach that is likely to put you at high risk, we tell you without undue delay. We report a breach to the regulator within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, unless it is unlikely to put anyone at risk.
9. Your rights
You can ask us to:
- tell you what we hold about you (access),
- correct it,
- delete it (except what the law makes us keep),
- stop using it in a particular way, or restrict it,
- give you a copy in a usable format (portability),
- stop processing based on legitimate interest, if you object,
- delete the campaign name on your account, if it has one: we do that whenever you ask.
You can also close your account yourself in the panel, once you have signed in within the last 10 minutes, as long as no server of yours has paid time left and no payment is going through. That deletes it as section 6 says, straight away, except a concern you reported and what the law makes us keep.
These rights are the same for every customer, wherever you live.
Email support@galeforcehosting.net. We reply within one month. We may ask you to prove it is your account, usually by replying from the email on the account.
You will not be charged for this. If a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive (for example, the same request made again and again), we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse it, and we will tell you why.
10. Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we use your data, email support@galeforcehosting.net. We will confirm we have your complaint within 30 days, look into it, and tell you the outcome. You can also complain to the ICO at any time.
The ICO is the UK data protection regulator. You can complain at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, call its helpline on 0303 123 1113, or write to: Information Commission's Office, 4th Floor, No.3 Circle Square, 5 Hawkshaw Street, Manchester M1 7BL.
11. Your players
If other people play on your server, their chat, IP addresses and in-game names appear in your server's console and logs. You are the one running that server, so you decide how that data is used. We store it as part of your files and do not use it ourselves. When you, or a member of your server, kick, ban or unban a player from the panel, or give or take away their admin rights there, we also keep that player's in-game name or game ID in your server's activity log, and delete it after 90 days. If you run a server for people beyond your family and friends, our Terms of Service (section 14) say how we look after that information for you.
12. Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we email you before it takes effect. The date at the top is the date this version took effect.