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Privacy policy — Z-ARK

Last updated: 9 October 2026

This is a translation; the French version prevails.

1. Who is responsible

AUTEF Alexis, sole trader (full details in the legal notice). Contact: contact@z-ark.fr.

2. What the bots do

The “Z-ARK” and “Z-Death” Discord bots connect an ARK: Survival Ascended game server, managed with the Z-ARK software, to its community’s Discord server. A bot is only added to a Discord server by one of its administrators, who chooses the channels where it acts. They are used to:

  • Z-ARK: copy the game chat into a Discord channel and, if the administrator allowed it, that channel’s messages into the game;
  • Z-Death: post player deaths (and, if chosen, creature deaths), with buttons reserved for the game server’s administrators;
  • Z-ARK: post ARK’s patch notes;
  • Z-ARK: post the status of the servers and the operator’s alerts in the chosen channels, and let the operator act on their servers through buttons.

3. Data processed

  • On Discord: the IDs of the Discord server and of the chosen channels; in the bridge channel only, the text of messages and the Discord name and ID of their author; for a button click, the ID and name of the person who clicked, as well as their roles and permissions on that Discord server, used to check that they are allowed to act (the same permissions are checked to link or unlink a channel).
  • In the game: players’ names and the text of their messages in the game chat; for a death, the name of the character, of its tribe, and the content of its inventory.

The bots read no other channel, do not read private messages, and collect no email address, no player IP address and no payment data.

4. Why, and on what basis

Only to provide the service requested by the game server’s operator, holder of a Z-ARK account (the bots are free): relaying messages between their game and their Discord, posting their status and alerts, and carrying out the actions they trigger. Legal basis: performance of the contract with that operator (GDPR Article 6(1)(b)) and, for players and Discord members, their community’s legitimate interest in having this relay (Article 6(1)(f)).

This data is never sold, rented, used for advertising, or used to train artificial intelligence.

5. How long

For the Discord bots: nothing is kept beyond transit. A message waits in a queue only until it is delivered to its recipient (the game server or the Discord channel), then it is deleted. A message that could not be delivered is deleted after 24 hours at most. The service’s technical logs do not contain the text of messages.

Messages posted by the bots on Discord remain under the control of that Discord’s administrators, who can delete them at any time.

6. Where, and with whom

For the Discord bots: the service runs in France, on a server owned by the publisher. Messages also pass through Discord Inc. (United States), whose own privacy policy applies to the use of its platform. No other third party has access.

Each operator only sees what concerns their own servers: the service prevents an operator from posting in another’s Discord or reading its messages.

7. Your rights

For the Discord bots: you can request access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection or portability by writing to contact@z-ark.fr. Since nothing is kept beyond transit, there is usually nothing to hand over or delete on our side; for messages already posted on a Discord, also contact its administrators. You can lodge a complaint with the French data protection authority (CNIL): cnil.fr. For the account, the licence, support and purchases, see sections 10 to 15.

8. Minimum age

The bots are intended for Discord and ARK: Survival Ascended users, and follow the minimum age set by those platforms.

9. Changes

Any change to this policy is published on this page, with its date.

10. Online purchases (licences and plugins)

Section added on 1 October 2026. It covers buying a Z-ARK licence or a plugin from the Z-ARK software, with an account created on z-ark.fr. Controller: the same publisher (section 1).

The data processed, and why

  • Account e-mail address: identifying the buyer, sending the confirmation and the invoice.
  • Order content: products, durations (3 months or 1 year), prices including taxes, date and time, order reference and status (pending, paid, declined, under review).
  • Record of the two ticked boxes: exact text of each box, time, version and address of the terms of sale accepted — proof of acceptance and of the waiver of the right of withdrawal.
  • Billing name and address: entered on Stripe’s payment page (required), copied onto the invoice.
  • Technical payment identifiers (Stripe session and payment): linking the confirmation to the order, finding a payment in case of refund.
  • Start and end dates of each licence.
  • In case of refund or dispute: the date, the amount refunded or the reason.
  • The invoice: number, seller, customer, lines, total, payment date.

Never collected by Z-ARK: card number, security code, PayPal credentials. They are entered on Stripe’s or PayPal’s page and do not go through our servers. Technical logs only keep the order reference and the invoice number.

On what basis

Performance of the sales contract (order, licence, confirmation e-mail) and a legal obligation (invoice and accounting records).

How long

  • Paid orders, invoices and records of the ticked boxes: 10 years from the sale (accounting records).
  • Orders never paid (abandoned or declined): deleted automatically after 3 months, the time needed to handle a complaint or a delayed payment.
  • Customer account: as long as it exists.

With whom

  • Stripe (Stripe Payments Europe Ltd, Ireland): card payment; possible transfers to Stripe, Inc. (United States), covered by the European Union standard contractual clauses.
  • PayPal (PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A., Luxembourg), through Stripe: only if the customer chooses PayPal.
  • Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc., San Francisco, United States): sending e-mails; transfers covered by the European Union standard contractual clauses and the EU–US Data Privacy Framework certification.

Accounts, licences and invoices are hosted in France, on a machine belonging to the publisher. No other transfer, no resale, no advertising.

E-mails sent to the buyer

The order confirmation with its invoice; a notice if a delayed payment is declined (nothing is invoiced then); a notice of handling within 48 hours if an order goes under review, with a refund if it cannot be completed.

Your rights

Access, rectification, erasure (except accounting records, kept 10 years as the law requires), objection and portability, by writing to contact@z-ark.fr. You may also lodge a complaint with the CNIL, the French data protection authority (www.cnil.fr).

11. Your Z-ARK account

Section added on 4 October 2026. An account is created on z-ark.fr, with or without a purchase. It is used to download Z-ARK, link your installations, obtain a licence and contact support.

The data processed, and why

  • E-mail address: the account identifier. It receives the activation link, the download link, the links to choose a new password and the messages related to the account.
  • Password: never stored as such. Only a hash is recorded (scrypt, with a salt specific to each account): it can verify the password, not recover it.
  • Account creation date, and acceptance of the terms of use, required to create the account.
  • Sign-in session: when you sign in to “My account”, a randomly drawn session identifier is stored in a cookie (section 14). The session closes on its own after 12 hours of inactivity, and after 7 days at most.
  • Sign in with Discord (optional) : you can sign in to z-ark.fr with the “Continue with Discord” button. You then go through Discord’s authorisation page (Discord Inc., United States), where you agree to share your Discord ID and email address with us; we receive nothing else.
    • What we keep: your Discord ID (a number), linked to your account, and nothing else — no username, no list of servers; your avatar only if you make it your account picture (below).
    • The email address provided by Discord is used only if Discord marks it as verified: to create your account (after you accept the terms of use), or to tell you that an account already exists at that address. It is never linked automatically to an existing account: you link Discord yourself from “My account”.
    • Discord is used only to sign you in to the website (licences, purchases, download); it gives no access to Z-ARK or to your servers.
    • Legal basis: your request and the performance of the contract (the terms of use).
    • Retention: until you click “Unlink” in “My account”, or until your account is deleted.
    • Discord Inc. processes your data under its own privacy policy; its transfers outside the European Union are covered by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and standard contractual clauses. We send nothing to Discord: you sign in with Discord yourself.
  • Account picture (optional) : from “My account”, you can give your account a picture, shown next to “My account” at the top of the website, to you only.
    • Either a picture you upload: your browser crops it into a small square before sending it, and we save it again (128 × 128 pixels) without any of the information it may have contained (device, location, date).
    • Or your Discord avatar, if your account is linked to Discord and you ask for it: we then fetch it from Discord, and again at each sign-in with Discord to keep it up to date.
    • One picture per account, with no history; only you can see it, once signed in.
    • Legal basis: your request.
    • Retention: until you click “Remove”, unlink Discord (for a Discord avatar), or your account is deleted.
  • What the “My account” area shows: your licences and their end dates, your purchases and invoices (section 10), and your Z-ARK installations (version, system, number of servers, last contact — section 12).
  • Download link request: the address entered is only used to send the link to the matching account, if it exists.
  • Security: the IP address of the connection is used to limit abusive attempts (sign-ups, sign-ins, e-mails sent in bulk).

On what basis

Performance of the contract (the terms of use accepted at sign-up); the security of the service falls under the publisher’s legitimate interest.

How long

  • Account and associated data: as long as the account exists. You can ask for its deletion at contact@z-ark.fr; invoices remain kept for 10 years (section 10).
  • Account created but never activated: deleted when the activation link expires (24 hours).
  • Inactive account: 3 years without sign-in, active licence or reporting installation, with a warning e-mail one month before deletion.
  • Security data (IP addresses of attempts): never written to disk, kept in memory only for as long as needed to slow down attempts.

Accounts are hosted in France, on a machine belonging to the publisher. E-mails are sent through Resend (section 10).

12. What the Z-ARK software sends

Section updated on 4 October 2026. Z-ARK runs on your machine. Your worlds, backups, configuration files and logs stay with you, except what you attach yourself to a support request (article 13). Z-ARK exchanges the information described below with the publisher’s service, hosted in France on a machine belonging to the publisher; it also contacts a few third-party services directly, described at the end of this article.

The daily report

Z-ARK is downloaded from an account. Each downloaded archive carries a signed mark stating the account that obtained it and the date. On first launch, then once a day, each installation reports in, sending: a randomly drawn installation identifier, the mark of the original archive, the Z-ARK version, the language, the Windows version and, if the installation is linked to an account, its licence token, which contains the account’s e-mail address and the machine fingerprint (see below). Without a link, the report is sent without a token. The IP address of the connection is seen on that occasion: it is not recorded, and is only used, in memory, to slow down abuse.

Why: to check licences, to fight unauthorised distribution of the software and to know how many installations are in service.

Always, for the licence

To check the licence and follow how it is used, once a day, and whenever the number of servers or maps changes (at most every 10 minutes): the licence token, the Z-ARK version, the machine fingerprint (a code computed from its hardware identifiers, which recognises the machine without revealing them), the number of servers, the number of maps, the paid plugins in use and the number of servers using them. No server, player or tribe name.

The permanent connection of a linked installation

Once the installation is linked to a Z-ARK account, Z-ARK stays in contact with the publisher’s service for the features you use. Each exchange carries the licence token, and usually the machine fingerprint:

  • Public Discord bots (the default setting): an almost permanent connection — Z-ARK collects what it has to deliver by keeping a request open for up to 25 s, then renews it at once — and the state of the connection every 10 minutes. What the bots publish and relay goes through it: chat between the game and Discord (server name, player name, tribe and message text), the status board (displayed server names, state, number of players), alerts and Z-Death messages (articles 2 to 6).
  • Support: rereading your requests and their replies, every 5 minutes at most; what you send, when you send it (article 13).
  • Mod updates: for running servers, every 30 minutes at most, the IDs of the mods in use. The publisher’s service then asks CurseForge about them, with its own key.
  • Paid plugins: one pass per plugin, once a day (more often as it nears expiry), with the plugin name, the number of servers carrying it and a code computed from the machine’s Windows identifier; the list of its versions, every 6 hours at most; its download, when you install or update it.
  • Z-ARK updates: if automatic updating is on, every 30 minutes (5 minutes in immediate mode), and when the updates screen is opened: the installed version.
  • Service probe: every 10 minutes, a plain request, with no token and no data, to know whether the service answers.

Signing in, linking and purchases

  • Signing in to the dashboard with a Z-ARK account: the e-mail address and password you type are sent to the publisher’s service, which checks them, with the licence token and a nonce (a randomly drawn, single-use number). A password change sends the old and the new password; “forgot password” sends the e-mail address.
  • Linking an installation to an account: the e-mail address and password, or a code shown on screen, with the machine fingerprint.
  • Purchases from Z-ARK: the licence token, the chosen products and durations, the acceptance of the terms of sale and the language; payment takes place on Stripe’s page (article 10). After a payment, Z-ARK asks the service every 15 seconds for 5 minutes to activate the licence.

Anonymous usage statistics (on by default)

To learn how Z-ARK is really used and to fix its defects, each installation sends, at most once a day and at a randomly drawn time, ANONYMOUS statistics: versions (Z-ARK, ARK, Windows), presence of catalogue plugins with their version, counts in ranges (servers, maps, peak of connected players), crashes and errors (type and frequency, without any name), hardware in ranges (memory, processor) and the Z-ARK features used. These statistics carry no identifier: no account, no licence, no machine fingerprint; the IP address is not recorded. They cannot be linked to you. They are used by the publisher alone, in aggregated form, and kept for 25 months at most. You can turn them off at any time: Settings > Privacy > “Anonymous usage statistics”.

Details of your setup (only with your agreement)

The first time you open Z-ARK, a question asks whether you agree to help improve the software by sharing the details of your setup. These details are only sent if you answer yes, or if you tick the “Help improve Z-ARK” box yourself (Settings > Privacy). They include: for each server its name, its map, its state, its ARK version, the number of players and its plugins with their version; and the machine’s hardware (system, processor, memory, disks and free space). These details are not anonymous: they are sent with the licence token and remain linked to your installation and your Z-ARK account. You can withdraw your agreement at any time by unticking the box: the details stop being sent, and those already received are deleted within 30 days. They are kept for 12 rolling months.

Why: to know the configurations actually in use, in order to fix defects and guide the software’s development.

On what basis

Performance of the contract (the licence and the terms of use) for checking and following the licence, the connection of a linked installation, signing in, linking and purchases; the publisher’s legitimate interest for the daily report and the anonymous statistics — you object to them by unticking the statistics box and, for the daily report, by writing to contact@z-ark.fr; your consent for the setup details, which you withdraw by unticking the box.

How long

  • Daily report: an installation’s information is kept as long as it reports, then deleted one year after its last report. The IP address is not recorded.
  • Information sent for the licence: as long as the installation reports, then deleted one year after its last contact.
  • Permanent connection: nothing is kept beyond what each feature describes (bots: transit, article 5; support: article 13; purchases: article 10).
  • Anonymous usage statistics: 25 months at most.
  • Setup details: 12 rolling months; if you untick the box, the details already received from that installation are deleted within 30 days.

Third-party services contacted directly by Z-ARK

To work, Z-ARK also contacts directly services that do not belong to the publisher. Each one sees your machine’s IP address and what is stated below; its own privacy policy applies.

  • api.github.com (GitHub, United States): the latest AsaApi version, every 6 hours; and its download when you install AsaApi.
  • ark-server-api.com: the plugin catalogue and the page of each installed plugin, about every hour; then the download of a plugin when a newer version is announced.
  • Steam / Valve (anonymous SteamCMD login): the latest ARK version, every 30 minutes, and ARK downloads during installations and updates; SteamCMD itself, if it is missing.
  • CurseForge (api.curseforge.com): only if you have set your own CurseForge key — the IDs of your mods, with that key, instead of the publisher’s service.
  • ports.yougetsignal.com (United States): only when you run the “from the Internet” port test — your machine’s public address (first requested from the publisher’s service) and the tested port; that service tries to connect to it.
  • cdn.pelayori.com (files published for AsaApi): during a canary server test, a check that a file is present.
  • Discord and Telegram: only if you set up your own Discord bot, webhooks or Telegram alerts — what they publish (bridge messages, alerts, patch notes).
  • When you ask for a component to be installed: the official sites of MariaDB, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin and Microsoft (Visual C++, DirectX). And the ban-list addresses you type in yourself.

None of this information is sold or used for advertising. Neither your servers’ files nor your backups are sent.

13. Support requests

Section added on 4 October 2026. From Z-ARK, you can write to the publisher (“Support” button). A request contains:

  • its subject, your message, the replies exchanged and their dates, the Z-ARK account and the installation it comes from;
  • the screenshots you choose to attach;
  • the diagnostics: only the parts you leave ticked at the time of each sending. For a reported problem, the parts are offered ticked: each one can be read before sending (“See what is sent”) and unticked. For an improvement idea, no diagnostics are attached.

Depending on the parts ticked, diagnostics contain: the Z-ARK and system versions, non-secret settings, the state of the servers and their latest errors, and, if you tick them, the details of your servers, of their restarts, crashes, plugins and mods, their load (number of players, as figures only) and their configuration. Passwords, keys and tokens are masked before sending and never leave your machine. Without the “The details of my servers” box, no part names your servers.

Why, and on what basis: to answer your request and solve the reported problem — performance of the contract (the terms of use).

How long: screenshots and diagnostic parts are deleted 30 days after the request is closed; the request itself (subject, messages, replies and their dates) is kept for 3 years after it is closed. A closed request is archived after 7 days and comes back if it is reopened.

Requests are hosted in France, on a machine belonging to the publisher, and are read by the publisher only.

14. Cookies

The z-ark.fr website sets no audience measurement, advertising or social network cookie. Only one cookie exists, and only if you sign in to “My account”: zark_compte, which holds the randomly drawn session identifier (section 11). It is only sent to the website itself, cannot be read by the pages, expires after 7 days at most and is deleted when you sign out. Being strictly necessary for the service you request (staying signed in), it is exempt from consent.

15. Your rights over this data

For sections 10 to 14: access, rectification, erasure (except accounting records), restriction, objection and portability, by writing to contact@z-ark.fr. You may also lodge a complaint with the CNIL, the French data protection authority (www.cnil.fr).