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Prior to being amended last month, Discord’s privacy policy stated clearly that users would be notified “in advance” if the firm ever began to save the contents of voice, video, or channel calls. As this commitment looked to be discreetly broken by the most recent changes, which would take effect on March 27, numerous users were concerned. Does Discord intend to save call recordings? was the query posed by a Discord user to Ars.
According to a Discord spokeswoman who talked to Ars, “there has not been a change in Discord’s view on how we store or record the contents of video or voice channels. “We acknowledge that we unintentionally confused some of our consumers when we recently updated the language in our privacy policy. To be clear, nothing has changed, and we have included some new clarifications to our privacy policy along with the text.
The policy was going to be changed such that it stated that Discord would be gathering data on “any content that you publish to the service” before users started to complain. For instance, you can use the services to write messages or posts (including drafts), send voice messages, make your own emojis, film brief clips of GoLive activities, upload files, and share them. This also applies to the data you enter into your profile and give when setting up servers.
We appreciate that the phrasing of the new privacy policy is broad and can be misread, Discord staff members said after users expressed concerns on Reddit, vowing, “We are going to rectify this.”
Call recordings made by someone who isn’t a party to the call are generally prohibited in the United States and the European Union. Discord probably modified the privacy policy to both placate users and to hide its legal traces, but that doesn’t guarantee it won’t ever happen. The policy’s newly amended language now now states that Discord may eventually gather some of this kind of content in response to user outcry.
Since then, Discord inserted back in the missing wording, word by word: “We normally do not store the contents of video or audio calls or channels. We would notify you in advance if we were to change it in the future (for instance, to make content moderation easier). Discord won’t “frequently” gather this kind of stuff, according to a Reddit user who identified themselves as a staff member.
The new Discord policy adds, “We may develop features that assist users in interacting with speech and video material, such as the ability to record and exchange brief audio or video clips.
Regarding user privacy, Discord hasn’t always done a good job. For privacy infractions in the EU last year, including failing to close down voice rooms when Windows users clicked the “X” icon, Discord was fined 800,000 euros. The EU discovered that instead of leaving those users, users unknowingly continued to use voice rooms, which were running in the background and might have been broadcasting private discussions that users were unaware could be overheard.