“You are what you play”: Breaching privacy and identifying users in online gaming

In this paper, we describe different ways that data collected through gaming can be used to learn more about individual players or their groups. We also make a case, taking into consideration two massively multiplayer online games, that such data may be indiscriminately collected, given the diminishing cost of electronic storage space and the increasing need for information that government and other organizations have. A variety of personally identifiable data items and their potential use for data mining analysis is also discussed.