Riot Games to Start Recording Your Valorant Voice Comms to Curb Toxicity

Riot Games released a new privacy update for Valorant and revealed that voice comms in the game will be recorded if a player is reported. Disruptive behavior is something the game has been trying to tackle for months and the developers are becoming stricter when it comes to enforcing its rules. Whenever a player is reported, the game will record voice comms to help evaluate the reports. Valorant is the first game to receive this change and it may extend to League of Legends and other Riot Games titles soon. If a violation is detected, necessary action will be taken once the recorded comms are no longer needed. 

What Does The Updated Privacy Policy Mean For Valorant Players

 The update to Riot Games’ privacy notice allows us to record and potentially evaluate voice data when using Riot-owned voice comms channels. When a player submits a report for disruptive or offensive behavior in voice comms, the relevant audio data will be stored in your account’s registered region and evaluated to see if our behavior agreement was violated. If a violation is detected, Riot will take action. Once action is taken, the player data will be deleted. This is currently how the game handles text-chat data and a similar process is being implemented for voice chat as well.

Riot revealed “even though the legal document update gives us the ability to capture voice data, League of Legends, Wild Rift, and Teamfight Tactics currently have no plans to record player voice chat or expand the voice chat capabilities beyond party voice chat. Legends of Runeterra does not have any plans to implement voice chat.”

Riot Games Explains Why It Wants to Focus on Voice Evaluation 

Riot Games revealed that it has taken a look at disruptive behavior for its games and and “voice evaluation is just one of the ways we want to make our games better for everyone who plays them.” Riot Games wants to implement quick and accurate ways to report abuse or harassment so we know when to take action. Recording voice comms will offer clear evidence to verify violations of behavioral policies before Riot Games takes any action. 

The move is likely to raise privacy concerns and Riot Games has already addressed the issue. It mentioned, “when we collect data, we’ll be transparent, we’ll keep it for only as long as is necessary, and we’ll protect it as if it were our own.” The game will not be actively monitoring your live game comms. However, the game will potentially listen only when disruptive voice behavior is reported during a match. Currently, the only way to not have voice comms recorded is to disable voice chat and there is no way to opt-out of the new policy while leaving voice chat enabled.  

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