Voting Whitelist privacy concerns

I was hoping to reach out to the community and bring attention to what I personally feel is a gross overreach in privacy regarding the Voting Whitelist application process.

I completely understand that the economy of the server is a very strong foundation for gameplay, and gachapon can be abused in order to hurt player experience, however, the current system requires players to provide photographs of themselves (and household members) holding up signs with their government names, character names, and date. But the catch that's the huge overreach? - the instructions explicitly tell you not to cover your faces. In practice, this makes no difference between a uploading a photo of the lower 3/4 of your body holding up a note, and is simply an overreach to essentially self-dox. At the end of the day, GMs are just volunteers doing moderatoration for free and are in no way legally obligated to keep this information safe - and i'm not sure why we are to trust people with our faces.
My questions are:
Are there any alternatives like video calls with admins - where you're able to show both household members and shared details of your accounts? - that seems like a FAR more secure and straight forward method.
Why is this necessary to leave one's face uncovered?
Why is it acceptable to request players to dox themselves just to be able to vote fairly from a shared household - I COMPLETELY understand some people are to abuse this system, but moderation can be implemented without the incredible overreach.

I strongly think this policy is outdated and would really appreciate if it was revamped 11 years later. I feel that it discourages honest players from participating, forces unnecessary exposure, and opens the door to doxing.

If you agree or have your own concerns, please speak up. I know not everybody is a multi-player household, but I feel that this needs to change. There is no way in hell my wife for instance will be posting her selfie holding her government name and maplestory character names on this forum sadly.

 

so dont do it.
you are not obligated to enter the whitelist if you don't agree with it, there are other ways to vote together - just take turns o.o
1st day u vote, 2nd day she/he votes, 3rd day you vote and so on.
it's needed to leave the face uncovered for identification purposes, it's pretty clear.

I don't need the whitelist cause i'm the only one playing in my own home, but if i were to need to whitelist, i'd probably submit my request as well.

Another note is that because this is sensitive information, only some people are allowed to handle the vote whitelist, and not the entire staff.

I think you missunderstand - this is not public. this is not some info everyone can access, only a very small amount of people within staff can see it.

 

Just don’t do it? That’s not a solution at all.

My wife and I are both players. We both vote, we both contribute to the server's population actively and would like to purchase RX - both supporting the server. We shouldn’t be punished/forced into doxxing ourselves just because we share the same household.

Again, i'm not against verification one bit. We’re both absolutely willing to do something reasonable - that'd be a brief Discord video call with an admin to confirm we’re separate people, and share screen showing them we're both playing the server - there's really no way to fake that, and it's much more effective than a photo. But uploading our faces to a forum - even if it’s according to you only visible to certain staff - is not very reasonable for being in year 2025. None of us know who those staff members are or how securely that data is handled - I have a much larger community which I will not disclose due to "advertising" and have worked on many large game projects, and not once have I come across a situation like this.

And also - "Just take turns voting” is not an answer - because again, we are asked to choose between our privacy and our ability to play the game fairly like all other players are allowed to.
Again, I hope somehow 11 years later somebody thinks of an alternative way to go about this.

 

no one is punishing you lol
the rules states that you can vote only once in total per household.
the staff gives you an option - you as for you and your wife - to vote together for a short procedure.

so lets go with your idea - short video call to prove that you are both playing different accounts and all that.

lets say there are 30 people atm applying for the whitelist, you do realize that the staff needs to find a suitable time for both themselves AND the players to perform the said video call?

this might delay every single submission by a shitload of time, and also - why would the staff be obligated to video verify every single player that wants to submit themselves into the whitelist?

they can handle batches of submissions instead of having to waste their time, and players time, trying to co-ordinate a video call.

you're talkin like staff is keeping all of your information in their personal excel file, waiting to maliciously use it against you whenever they want.

you don't have to submit yourself in the whitelist if you are so scared of being doxxed, there's a reason why not every staff member have access to the whitelist area, and only select members can - maximize your privacy and also make sure there is enough personnel to handle the submissions.

is it clearer now?

 

Brushing off a privacy concern like this is pretty silly. Not everyone feels like exposing their real identities online, even to a small amount of people, and no amount of "nuh uh they won't do anything" doesn't change that. My younger brothers live in the same house together and had the exact same concerns years ago when they went through the whitelist application and were told to share pics of themselves. They didn't do it. They found a very easy workaround instead. I'm not going to tell you how, though. But they wouldn't have bothered to come up with another method if the whitelist requirements weren't so ridiculous.

 

If you have a suggestions that would take staff an equal or lower amount of time, and is at least equally robust I am pretty sure they would welcome that with open arms. Have a look at the ban appeals section otherwise, they really do need to have a very accurate method because a lot of people will claim 'their brother' is also voting.

I agree that there could be some privacy concerns but as a server with only 2 (I think just Tim and Matt?) admins doing the whitelist along with many other things, this is what they decided. Voting every other day, while not ideal still gives you plenty of nx in the long run to get everything you need but yes, you do make a little bit less mesos compared to others.

 

If the admins in here would like to use your data maliciously, they'd do it without you knowing and would have probably been rich af now or in jail. People are providing credit cards here.

This game server is, for many players, their most important and beloved life-project. It's important to protect that. It's delicate.

 

That's everyones favorite quote on Royals.

"We don't care. If you don't like it, leave." *sits back and just points to the ToS*

I do agree with @Nutter, this for sure is a privacy concern, because quite frankly, there isn't any privacy here. There's no way in hell I'd provide my face to this staff team (because it's not only the admins who sees this). I mean, our server is even located in Russia afaik? G to the G

@Zanath and @gaalf96 , the problem with your statements is that they aren't true. It's not only the admins that have access to the voting whitelist.



It's every member of the staff who has been around for more than 3 months. I sure as hell wouldn't trust EVERY single staff that has been around for more than 3 months.

Credit cards can be blocked, your photograph certainly won't be removed from the internet just because you want to.

 

What are they gonna do with the photograph? I'm genuinely curious as to why a photograph is such a security issue.

 

The question is regarding a privacy issue and not security.

 

That's not what I said.

This is not mandatory at all, he doesn't have to do it.
What's the issue with taking turns?
If you don't agree with an optional procedure, just don't do it.
He doesn't have to leave.

I understand his concerns, really, that's why I said he can just not do it if he feels uncomfortable.

It's not mandatory to play the game.

 

I just want to chime in about this standard and why it's important. Not too long ago, there was a private server called novaro, and unlike here, their standard was -You can do weeklies 4x within a household- and there were no IP checks involved, it was simply based on hardware ID. Now, you would think people would play fair and just do their weeklies once, but all of a sudden, everyone at home was playing novaro.

I've personally dedicated a lot of my time attempting to bypass systems like this, and I can tell you, what this server is asking for, is simply proof of life. There are so many ways you can just take someone else's picture and post it. With AI, I'm sure you can actually create other human beings with ID cards present. We've arrived at a point, where even your real info can be used by someone else and you wouldn't even know it. It really doesn't matter how difficult they make it, because in reality, it's still not enough and everything can be fabricated.

In regards to privacy: If you had a facebook, an instagram, anything with your real phone number on it, which links you to a bank card because you made a purchase or supported someone online, then your info has already been compromised. There are hundreds of mini -companies- who buy your data, spoof your information, and even doxx you, so that they can attempt to use your name in some foreign land and buy a house using your credit history. I can keep going, but the comparison I'm trying to make is, this is a private server for maple story. It has a steady 2k+ users daily, their staff is very few and their database is much smaller than a real tech company. Can they sell your info? sure, but finding a buyer who is willing to take (I can only assume) -800 identities is unlikely. Can they look at posts you've made online? perhaps search you up for any bad habits you may have? Likely, but so can everyone else, which is why you shouldn't be exposing a shady part of your life on any media whatsoever.

One thing you have to understand is, they're doing this to protect the players and their server from a possible duplication scheme regarding NX. If the cost of this means you need to share your personal info, then I am fine with it, and so should you, because it means someone with bad intentions will leak their personal identity to them, and they will be able to protect you, and everyone else who is a genuine player, who may feel their experience has been burned due to a bad actor who may have hoarded NX at double if not triple the rate. This is not done to harm you, or anyone in your household. This is to enforce integrity, something that is actually priceless these days, and I for one can appreciate this, because I know, and you know, that your grandma is not playing maple, and if she is, god bless her heart, but until you can prove to us that is really what's happening, then no one is ever going to believe you.

We used to have a term for this: Pics or didn't happen.

As annoying as that sounds, it's what everyone will be asking you. You simply need to oblige in this case.

 

This is something a lot of people overlook. Credit cards are already being provided, so your real names are in the system. If anyone wanted to find how you look like, they could simply look at a receipt and use that info. There really is no privacy, unless you live in the woods and have been for more than three decades.

 

Alright, good to know.

 

As someone in Cybersecurity, I get the instinct to be private and cautious, but after reading the process, I honestly don’t see the big deal. We’re talking about a photo with your name and the date, not a driver’s license, not a passport, nothing that’s going to get anyone doxxed.

People get way too hung up on the idea that a photo is some super-sensitive info. You’re on cameras every time you walk outside, you’re probably in a dozen school yearbooks, and half of us have our names and faces on social media anyway. If someone wanted to find a picture of you, trust me, they could. I have to show strangers a card with my address on it if I want to pay with plastic and spend more than $25 on dinner.

At the end of the day, this is about as harmless as it gets. There are way more intrusive ways to do this. Honestly, they could be a lot more strict, or just say “well, that sucks if you live in the same house, unfortunately just one vote per household.”

Also, it's just as easy to take a screenshot of a video call, if anything, I'd argue that's even less secure.

Given the constraints, I think this is probably the best system they could go with.

 

I think worst things someone can do with a photo of u is using AI to make a meme of u dancing. jokes aside impersonation is a thing, but as some mentioned before finding someone's picture online isn't impossible with little input.

 

the few selected trusted staffs who can access your pics most likely wont dox, distribute your pics, troll or stalk you but i would be more concerned about how the photos are stored, whether they are encrypted, whether there are safeguards to prevent leaks, whether the photo can be downloaded, how long the photos are kept before deletion, what will happen if theres a data breach

otherwise one security incident or if one guy turns rogue, your pic with your face holding your real name, IGN name, will end up on the internet forever with no one specific to blame or hold responsible, and with no way to take it down
your information is permanently exposed without your consent and leaving you vulnerable to potential targeted harassment