Do Chinese Authorities monitor my private STEAM chat ?

[NSFW]

Since there has been a modified Chinese client developed and released by STEAM,
and it says in an article I read about it, that it grants Chinese Auhorities rights to monitor STEAM, and block certain aspects of STEAM, I wonder, if Chinese Authorities do actually monitor my personal Chat, if I do have a private chat with a Chinese Steam user. So I wonder if all my private information that I do share with a Chinese friend is now in Chinese Databases available to exploit ?

This is not a political question, and I do not want to discuss any politics, I want to know if this is how STEAM works technically. If so, wouldn't that actually technically be illegal abuse of my privacy rights ?

If this thread is being deleted I will accept your decision, and ask my parlimentarians about it, they are normally really interested in those kind of questions too.

[eram]

you are not running the Chinese steam client

[T9]

No, US authorities do. You can rest easy

[Washell]

Assuming your Chinese steam user uses the Chinese client, rather than the regular client and a VPN, than yes, it's most likely the chat is being monitored and flagged for review by certain keywords.

But you don't have any privacy rights in China, and if you decide to engage with this Steam user, you should keep that in mind.

引用自 ☺ TLM ☺：

ask my parlimentarians about it, they are normally really interested in those kind of questions too.

China no longer cares what foreign governments think of them. They've got the military power to defend themselves, and their manufacturing sector builds for the world, making sanctions hurt western countries more than them.

[NSFW]

引用自 Washell：

But you don't have any privacy rights in China, and if you decide to engage with this Steam user, you should keep that in mind.

But I am not in China, I am in EU, and Steam has to protect my privacy according to EU laws.
You seem to misunderstand, Sanctions would probably be applied to STEAM in this case, not to China, because STEAM is responsible. I am using the regular STEAM client, not the Chinese STEAM.

[J4MESOX4D]

引用自 ☺ TLM ☺：

if I do have a private chat with a Chinese Steam user

There are no private chats on Steam, not even with the normal client. Keywords can be flagged and conversations logged. There is no end-to-end encryption.

[Washell]

引用自 ☺ TLM ☺：

I am in EU

Then you should educate yourself before complaining about China. While your personal identifiable data is protected, like name, address, health data, and so on, your online chat isn't covered by privacy laws. That's half the reason why end to end encryption is the selling point of many online communication services.

Also, any personal identifiable information you share in such a chat is free game. The GDPR covers what companies are allowed to ask from you, what they're allowed to do with that information, how they need to store it, and what they need to do when they lose it. It's not a license to all of us to render a chat private just by stating your name.

[On Vacation]

The Chinese client at launch did not have community features like the forums or chat. As far as I know that's still the case.

[NSFW]

引用自 On Vacation：

The Chinese client at launch did not have community features like the forums or chat. As far as I know that's still the case.

Interesting, I should ask him if he uses it !

[On Vacation]

I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't, given there isn't even 200 games on it.

[davidb11]

引用自 J4MESOX4D：

引用自 ☺ TLM ☺：

if I do have a private chat with a Chinese Steam user

There are no private chats on Steam, not even with the normal client. Keywords can be flagged and conversations logged. There is no end-to-end encryption.

Normal Steam chat between people cannot be logged at all.
Or checked for keywords.

Besides, all traces of it goes away after 3 weeks.
Steam can't store anything at all of private chat.
And yeah it is private, because it's between two people.

[Mad Scientist]

引用自 ☺ TLM ☺：

引用自 Washell：

But you don't have any privacy rights in China, and if you decide to engage with this Steam user, you should keep that in mind.

But I am not in China, I am in EU, and Steam has to protect my privacy according to EU laws.
You seem to misunderstand, Sanctions would probably be applied to STEAM in this case, not to China, because STEAM is responsible. I am using the regular STEAM client, not the Chinese STEAM.

If you're not in china, then No.
If you're not using the steamchina client, also No.
If the other person is "Yes" to either, then "Fair chance".
Being in the EU is also mostly irrelevant when in regard to what you accept, and where the service is headquartered, thus your expectations of privacy exist only if you're not violating any rules for the content you put in steam chat. What you choose to put into it, is not likely to be considered private since it can be monitored/reported for adherence to such rules. Thus, if you put something in there, that is on you. Since as another pointed out; it's in regard to what the company can ask of you, collect etc. What you willingly put in there potentially compromising information is strictly on you for such.

引用自 ☺ TLM ☺：

ask my parlimentarians about it, they are normally really interested in those kind of questions too.

Also remember, politicians are not your friends, it's best to not get them involved as they'll just want to look for more ways to attempt fining, taxing, controlling or otherwise.

What someone in china receives or sends could potentially be compromised for non end-to-end encrypted messages, so the best practices is don't send or receive personal information if not using such services. You have no guarantee of privacy when you send such to an area known to monitor their own heavily. Use a dedicated encrypted service if you want to send personal stuff, but don't do that anyway as a best practice of internet security.

[Aachen]

引用自 davidb11：

Normal Steam chat between people cannot be logged at all.
Or checked for keywords ....

You cannot copy/paste the content of your chats? Or search the resulting log?

[davidb11]

引用自 Aachen：

引用自 davidb11：

Normal Steam chat between people cannot be logged at all.
Or checked for keywords ....

You cannot copy/paste the content of your chats? Or search the resulting log?

Of course I Can copy/paste the chat I type. In the chat itself.
I could copy it to a Notepad document, but that's a lot of work.

I'm a bit confused here.
Steam literally can't spy on what you say in a communication with your friends.
It's like Skype back in the day.

[J4MESOX4D]

引用自 davidb11：

引用自 J4MESOX4D：

There are no private chats on Steam, not even with the normal client. Keywords can be flagged and conversations logged. There is no end-to-end encryption.

Normal Steam chat between people cannot be logged at all.
Or checked for keywords.

Besides, all traces of it goes away after 3 weeks.
Steam can't store anything at all of private chat.
And yeah it is private, because it's between two people.

Please don't post misinformation. Such things are retained (timed) to combat such things as fraud and scams - how do you think they've made determinations stemming from Steam chat as evidence over the years when they investigate scam reports? You have no idea what they store, review and their internal process for passing things on to law enforcement when necessary but one thing is for sure as evidenced previous, they will use chat when necessary to investigate reports and literally every online service uses keyword flag software these days.

You cannot possibly think that in 2022, a chat between two people online is wholly private on a non-encrypted framework.

[davidb11]

Sorry, but this makes no sense at all.
Steam doesn't spy on it's users.
It makes no sense to claim it does.

Sure, they can actually look at the chat if they are forced to by people reporting a scammer.
But that's the only time. They don't have someone actively watching all chat between two people.

I'm so confused right now.
Steam Chat is protected the same way Skype was.
Skype wasn't monitored by anything, and it had full text file logs on your computer.

Steam doesn't even store the chat past three weeks.
All I know is based on what I've read on this forum for literally 6 years.

Sure I can be wrong, and I've been wrong before, but this is so confusing here.
Because in this day and age, no company can logically store private chat information for any great length of time without causing a lot of problems with it's userbase.