My Houseparty GDPR data dump

During the start of the Covid19 lockdown, I was convinced by friends to try houseparty and decided it was pretty crappy so stopped using it as mentioned in a previous blog.

After many emails I finally got my personal GDPR data copy. From Hotel Charlie!

I can’t tell you how much hassle its been… even when they sent me a horribly long link (we are talking about 300 characters long) to the zip file, it would expire a few hours later on their Amazon S3 bucket.

<Error>
<Code>ExpiredToken</Code>
<Message>The provided token has expired.</Message>
<Token-...{very large token}...</Token>
</Error>

Finally once I got it… It was a zip file with a index.html and 5 different folders.

  • room_visits / room_visits.html
  • profiles /profile.html
  • photos / 216A9AAE57194410901F8BA7981E63AB (a png file)
  • interactions / interactions.html
  • friends / friends.html

All the .html files are horrible tables for example here is interactions.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Room Visits</title>
</head>
<style>
table {
    border-collapse: collapse;
}
table, th, td {
    border: 1px solid black;
}
</style>
<body>
<table border="1">
    <tr>
        <td>Room ID</td>
        <td>Room Visit Start Date</td>
        <td>Room Visit End Date</td>
        <td>Users</td>
    </tr>
    
    <tr>
        <td>e021116-bae-44d6-cc17-9121fbeaccc13</td>
        <td>
    2020-06-45T21:23:11Z
</td>
        <td>
    2020-06-11T21:16:41Z
</td>
        <td>
            <ul>
            
            </ul>
        </td>
    </tr>
    
</table>

</body>
</html>

The data isn’t that interesting but I think thats because I wasn’t using the app just my Chromium browser. I also only friended one person, so its all pretty slim on data.

Not that interesting but I’m very sure theres lots they have on me, however I requested my account is deleted. There is no way to delete your account if you are using the browser and the Android app from within the system. You have to request deletion!

My next GDPR request is for Clearview AI!

The Houseparty is over, time for the GDPR to kick in the front door?

houseparty gdpr request email

I requested my GDPR personal data from Houseparty/Epic games over a 2 months ago when I signed up under my spam email and slight social pressure from friends. I read the privacy policy and almost spat out my tea.

However I found I could use houseparty in a clean browser (chromium) – app.houseparty.com. as there was absolutely no way I was going to install the app on my pixel phone. After trying to play a game with friend I found the video worked but not the actual game.

As we moved on to using boardgamearena.com. I decided I wanted to delete my account and got interested to know how much data they had collected about me in my short time in houseparty.

Outcomes my GDPR request, I send it to data-requests@lifeonair.com and nothing. I resend it to support@houseparty.com and get my response. Back and forth then finally…

Houseparty Support

May 08, 2020, 20:46 +0100

Hello Ian,

Thank you for your response.

I’m glad that you’ve reached us regarding your request. We received your data request. Our team is working on pulling the data, and you will receive your data within 30 days.

Please feel free to contact us if you need any further assistance.

Regards,
Romeo Tango

As you see can see the date of May 8th was 34 days ago and yes I get Covid19 but I’m not expecting the much data back. Unless there is a ton coming my way?

Either way I’m annoyed at being messed around at the start and also them not taking it seriously. I’m still not convinced Romeo Tango is real to be honest.

ICO submission

So enough, I’ll let the ICO deal with it all.