Given that your voice chats and text communications done through Sony’s PSN obviously goes through Sony’s servers, it is possible for Sony to listen in and perhaps even record down the things that you do, and while Sony has stated that they are not planning to do that, they did express that they do retain the sole discretion of doing so without ever telling you. For the most part we’re sure that the messages and voice chats done over PSN are innocuous in nature, perhaps a lot of swearing about who’s going to kick whose ass and so on, but in the event that an illegal activity takes place and if law enforcement requires said recordings, Sony will have no problems turning that information over.
According to the PlayStation 4’s update Software Usage Terms, “Your use of PSN and our community features may be recorded and collected by us or sent to us by other users as described in 13.1. Any information collected in this way, for example, your UGM, the content of your voice and text communications, video of your gameplay, the time and location of your activities, and your name, your PSN Online ID and IP address, may be used by us or our affiliated companies to enforce these Terms and the SEN Terms of Service, to comply with the law, to protect our rights and those of our licensors and users, and to protect the personal safety of our employees and users. This information may be passed to the police or other appropriate authorities.” For the average gamer this is probably a non-issue, but something worth taking into consideration anyway.
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