WARDOGS PLAYER SAFETY

This page explains what we do to keep WARDOGS safe, how to report someone, and what happens next. WARDOGS is developed and operated by Bulkhead Limited. If you are a parent or guardian, the section on younger players is the one you want.

The rules themselves are in our End User Licence Agreement at wardogs.com/eula, what we do about people who break them is in our Security and Enforcement Policy at wardogs.com/enforcement, and what we do with personal data is in our Privacy Policy at wardogs.com/privacy.

How we keep the game safe

Three things run alongside each other. Anti-cheat software checks that the game has not been tampered with and looks for cheating while you play. Text chat and player-facing content such as names and clan tags are moderated, using a combination of people and automated tools. And you can report other players from inside the game, which is how most problems reach us.

Short version of what is not allowed: cheating and tampering, harassment and abuse, hate speech, threats, sexual content involving children, encouraging suicide, self-harm or violence, doxxing, scams and malware. The full list is in section 4 of the EULA.

Reporting a player

Use the reporting tool in the game. Pick the player, choose the reason, and add anything that helps us find it, such as the server name and roughly when it happened. Reports come to us, not to the server you were playing on.

When you send a report, the game may include a short extract of the recent text chat from that session, currently up to the last 50 messages, so that we can see what was said. We review that alongside the report itself, any other reports about the same player, and gameplay and anti-cheat data. Depending on what we find we may remove content, restrict an account, suspend it, ban it permanently, or ban the device. Most reports are dealt with within a few days, and serious ones sooner. We will not usually tell you the outcome of a report you made about someone else, because that is their personal data, but we do act on them.

We do not tell the person you reported that you were the one who reported them, and we do not pass your name or account details to them.

If you have been abused or harassed, you can also mute and block that player straight away rather than waiting for us.

Please do not make deliberately false reports or organise groups of people to report someone. That is against the rules and we may act on it.

 

Illegal content

Some things go beyond breaking our rules and are criminal. That includes child sexual abuse material, terrorist content, threats to kill or seriously harm, and fraud. We remove content like that as quickly as we can once we know about it, and we may pass it and the account details to the police or other authorities. Child sexual abuse material is always reported to the authorities.

If someone is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services rather than reporting it to us first: 999 in the UK, 911 in the United States and Canada, and 112 across the European Union. If you want to report child sexual abuse imagery you have seen anywhere online, most countries have a hotline that takes reports and INHOPE lists them at inhope.org. In the UK it is the Internet Watch Foundation at iwf.org.uk.

Voice and text chat

WARDOGS has text chat, which runs through our own game servers, and voice chat, which is provided for us by a third-party service. Neither is private: what you say can be seen or heard by other players, and we may review it when we are investigating a report or a breach of the rules. Do not share personal details such as your address, school, workplace or phone number with people you meet in game.

Text chat is passed through our game servers to the other players in your session and shown on their screens. We do not keep a copy of it, and it is not saved on your device either, so once a session ends the chat in it is gone. It only comes to us if somebody makes a report, and the extract attached to that report is kept with the report while we deal with it and for as long as we need it to support any action we take.

Voice chat is not recorded or stored, so we cannot go back and listen to something that was said. That means a report about voice chat is much easier for us to act on if you tell us the server and the approximate time, and if other players report the same thing. Muting and blocking works immediately and does not depend on us.

Community servers

Many WARDOGS servers are rented and run by players and communities rather than by us. The people running a server set their own rules on it and can kick or ban players from it. Those are their decisions, not ours, and we do not review them, so if you think a server admin has treated you unfairly, take it up with the community running that server.

We do want to hear about a server being used for anything illegal, or to break the rules in the EULA. Report it to us using the details below and we can remove a server from the server browser and withdraw our services from it.

Younger players

WARDOGS is rated 16 by PEGI in Europe and carries the equivalent rating from the relevant body in other countries. It is not made for children. It is bought and launched through Steam, and Steam asks for a date of birth which it does not verify, so we have no reliable way of knowing a player’s age and we do not receive one. We therefore apply the same protections to everybody rather than only to players we can confirm are adults.

If you are a parent or guardian, the practical controls sit in Steam rather than in our game. Steam Family View lets you restrict which games can be launched, limit store and community access, and set a PIN. It is in Steam under Settings, Family. You can also turn off voice chat in the game’s audio settings and use the mute and block tools.

If we learn that a player is below the age rating, we may suspend or close their access, and a parent or guardian can ask us to do that or to delete their child’s data by writing to privacy@bulkhead.com or through our privacy portal at account.wardogs.com.

If you think we have got something wrong

If we have restricted, suspended or banned your account and you think it was a mistake, our Security and Enforcement Policy explains which decisions can be appealed and how. Permanent account bans can be appealed at appeal@bulkhead.com.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled a report or a complaint, write to support@bulkhead.com and tell us what happened. If your concern is about your personal data rather than about a ban, write to privacy@bulkhead.com or use our privacy portal at account.wardogs.com, and our Privacy Lead will pick it up.

Contact

General and safety enquiries: support@bulkhead.com

Ban appeals: appeal@bulkhead.com

Data protection and privacy: privacy@bulkhead.com, or our privacy portal at account.wardogs.com

Bulkhead Limited, The Tramshed, 19-21 St James’s St, Derby, DE1 1RN