Privacy policy

1. Who we are

CSWatch ("cswatch.gg", "we") is a community-driven Counter-Strike 2 player reputation and analytics platform. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and what rights you have regarding your data.

Contact us at support@cswatch.gg.

2. Information we collect

• Steam profile data: when you search for a player or sign in with Steam, we retrieve public information from the Steam Web API: persona name, avatar, VAC / game-ban status, country, game-library summary. All of this is already publicly visible on Steam. For players we look up we also keep a history of their ranks (Premier, competitive, FACEIT) so profiles can show trends. We keep a copy of this public data, with public Leetify and FACEIT statistics, for players who are looked up on CSWatch or appear in matches our users link, so profiles load quickly and stay available when Steam is slow. The copy is refreshed regularly.
• Account data: if you sign in with Steam we store your Steam ID, persona name, and session tokens to keep you logged in. Only if you choose to use these features, we also store: your Steam match-history authentication code and latest share code (to sync your matches), your Discord ID and username (to give you roles and send alerts), an email address if you are an Overwatch reviewer and ask for email reminders (used only for those reminders, confirmed by a link first, and deleted when you unsubscribe or delete your account), and a Mollie customer ID if you pay for a membership.
• Match share codes and demos: when a match share code is submitted (for example with a report, a match check or your synced match history), we use it to fetch the match from Valve. For reports we download the match demo, keep a copy in our storage, and read the match events (kills, damage, rounds) of the players in it to calculate match statistics and give reviewers evidence. For match checks we keep the share code together with the match's map, score, date and the Steam IDs of its 10 players for 12 months, so checking the same match again is instant.
• Live chat: the messages you send in the chat on our site, the page you started it on, and your email address if you choose to leave one (only to send you our reply). A cookie keeps your chat on this device. Chats are deleted 12 months after the last message.
• Reports and reviews: any report you submit, any overwatcher review you cast, your IP address at time of submission, and any text / video evidence you attach.
• Usage analytics: pseudonymous pageviews (a random visitor ID kept in a cookie for up to a year), device type, browser, referrer, UTM campaign tags and the country your connection comes from. The country is looked up from your IP address at the moment of the visit; the IP address itself is not stored (IP geolocation by DB-IP). If you are signed in, visits are linked to your account. Our analytics are first-party; we don't sell or share them with ad networks.
• Advertising data: visitors without a membership see ads from Adsterra. Adsterra's scripts may set their own cookies to measure and select ads. Members load no ad scripts at all.

3. How we use your data

• Provide the player search, reputation score, and reporting features.
• Let community overwatchers review reported accounts.
• Calculate the trust / autoflag score (purely algorithmic).
• Improve the service by analysing aggregated usage patterns.
• Prevent abuse, spam, and false reports via rate limiting and IP logging.
• Sync your matches and calculate match statistics, if you link your match history.
• Show you the players you recently checked when you are signed in, from your visits on the browsers you sign in with, including visits from just before you signed in. Only you see this list.
• Send ban alerts for the players on your watchlist, in the app and by Discord message if you linked Discord.
• Answer your emails; we keep the correspondence so we can follow up.

Browser extension. When you open a Steam Community profile, the CSWatch extension sends that profile's public SteamID64 to cswatch.gg to fetch its reputation card. It reads nothing else from the page, stores nothing on your device, and does not track your browsing.

4. Cookies

We use a small number of first-party cookies: your sign-in session, a CSRF token, an analytics visitor ID, a short-lived cookie that returns you to the right page after Steam sign-in, and small preference cookies that limit how often an ad format or the Discord invite is shown to you. Visitors without a membership also see ads served by Adsterra, whose ad scripts may set their own cookies to measure and select ads. Ad scripts only load after you choose "Allow ad cookies" in our cookie banner; with "Essential only" no ad script loads at all. Your choice is kept in a cookie for 12 months and, if you are signed in, on your account. You can change it at any time via "Cookie settings" in the footer. Members see no ads and load no ad scripts.

5. Third-party services we use

• Hetzner Online GmbH: hosting of the website, the database, its backups and our email server, in data centres in Finland and Germany.
• Valve Steam Web API: public profile, ban, and match data.
• Leetify public API: aggregated CS2 performance stats.
• FACEIT public API: FACEIT level and ELO.
• Adsterra: ad serving and measurement for visitors without a membership.
• Cloudflare R2: storage for match demos, rendered case videos and render logs.
• Mollie: payment processing for memberships and one-time support (we never see your card details).
• Discord: account linking, roles and alert messages, only if you link your Discord account.
• demo-slap: optional highlight rendering of reported match demos.

6. Your rights (GDPR / CCPA)

You have the right to access, correct, export, or delete your personal data, and to withdraw consent at any time. Email support@cswatch.gg. We will respond within 30 days.

You can object to processing based on legitimate interest by emailing us, and withdraw consent for ad cookies at any time via "Cookie settings" in the footer. A membership removes all ad scripts.

7. Data retention

Account data is kept while your account exists. Discord details are kept until you unlink Discord or delete your account; match-history codes until you ask us to remove them or delete your account. Reports, with their archived demos and rendered videos, are kept indefinitely because they form the community record. Analytics data is retained for 90 days in individual form, then aggregated. Stored copies of public player data are deleted after 12 months without a lookup or a recent match, and live chats 12 months after the last message. We keep 7 nightly backups of our database on our server, so deleted data can remain in a backup for up to 7 days. You can request deletion of your account and reports at any time.

8. Children's privacy

CSWatch is not directed at children under 13 (or 16 in the EU). We do not knowingly collect data from minors. If you believe a minor has given us data, contact us and we'll delete it.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this page. Material changes will be announced on the home page. Continued use of the service after a change means you accept the new policy.