Privacy and Heartbeats

A heartbeat is a compact public advertisement of a server. It is not remote access; the Atlas never reaches into the beacon behind it.

Published data

When publishing is enabled, a beacon may send:

• Display identity, description, tags, region, and public URLs.
• Advertised Minecraft address and compatible server attributes.
• Sampled availability and online player count for discovery surfaces.

The Atlas can independently ping the advertised Minecraft address to corroborate public status.

Never published

The public heartbeat does not provide:

• Dashboard accounts, roles, allowlist entries, or invite codes.
• World files, backups, chat history, or audit history.
• RCON credentials, Docker access, privileged RPC capability, or server lifecycle controls.
• Exact player positions or other private in-world operational data.

Disable publishing

Pausing from the beacon's Atlas dashboard stops subsequent heartbeats. The listing remains, but without fresh signal the directory ages it out of live availability.

If you run a beacon: your players' data is yours

A beacon runs on your infrastructure, under your control. The Atlas never reads your dashboard database, so the personal data your beacon keeps about players, such as Minecraft usernames and account IDs (UUIDs), chat, gameplay activity and statistics, map waypoints, and connection or IP information, is collected and controlled by you, not by the Beacon project.

At a minimum you should:

• Tell your players what your beacon collects and why. A short notice is enough; use the template below.
• Have a lawful basis to process their data, and get consent where the law requires it, including a parent's or guardian's consent for children.
• Honor requests to access or delete the data your beacon holds.
• Mind minors. Minecraft skews young. If children play on your server, child-protection rules (COPPA in the US, GDPR Article 8 in the EU and UK) likely apply to you.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. For a sizeable or commercial server, talk to a lawyer.

A starter privacy notice for your players

Copy this, fill in the brackets, and publish it where your players will see it: your invite page, your Discord, or wherever you welcome people from.

Privacy notice for [Your server name]

This Minecraft server is run by [your name or handle] ("we"). This notice
explains what we collect about you when you play here. Questions? Reach us at
[your email or Discord].

What we collect
- Your Minecraft username and account ID (UUID), so we can let you in and show
  who is online.
- Your in-game activity: play sessions, chat messages, deaths, advancements,
  statistics, and any map waypoints you create.
- Connection information such as your IP address, used to run the game server.

Why we collect it
To operate the server, keep it safe, show the live map and leaderboards, and run
the community. [Add anything specific to your server.]

Signing in
You sign in with your Microsoft/Minecraft account through Beacon Atlas, which
confirms your identity and tells us your username and UUID. We never receive your
Microsoft password or tokens. Microsoft and Mojang handle your account under
their own terms.

Sharing
[If you list on the Atlas and publish a roster or activity feed, say so:
"We publish a player roster and recent activity on our public Atlas listing."]
Otherwise: "We do not publish your information or share it for advertising."

How long we keep it
[For example: "As long as the server runs, or until you ask us to remove it."]

Children
[If children may play: "If you are under [13 or 16, per your region], please play
only with a parent's or guardian's permission."]

Your choices
Ask us at [contact] to see or delete the data we hold about you, or to leave the
server.

Last updated: [date]