Lots of sections on this forum but I figured this was the best place.

I started playing online poker 7 years ago on full tilt. Roughly 8 hours of $30 husngs per day through college with hopes for the future. It slowed me down in uni but I did graduate, and left the continent straight after.
I've been abroad for a few years now.

Questions about how I fund myself keep rising. I have done my fair share of work abroad and try to avoid the subject poker at all times because it gets me in trouble with friends and family when I'm home.

A few weeks ago though, someone I know told me that he was "interested in poker" and asked if I used to do my grinding on pokerstars, what my swings are and how much roll I have.

I have an inactive account on stars, but told him that's where I play to close the subject. It seemed harmless. I said that my biggest swing in husngs was down 15 buy ins in 1 day and avoided talking about money as always.

But when I said I was on stars I noticed he had this strange grin on his face and looked at my other friends, as if he was hiding something.

As I came back from the toilet, I overheard that person telling to my friends that he knows people who work at pokerstars.

I don't think he was ever interested in poker, but he is fishing for information about my finances and how I fund my travels.

Is it possible that a coworker at pokerstars (there is a small national platform in my country) checks my account and gives info to my friends?

I asked pokerstars and they keep avoiding the subject, linking me their privacy policy and advocating that I should change passwords regularly.

But my question remains unanswered. Can any coworker on stars check out people they know in person, and then leak information without getting caught?

My friends don't know where I am active and I've only been on stars for a few weeks after full tilt was shut down, but I'm upset if the above is possible

Look what happened on fantasy sports. Wouldn't be that surprising if they could.

Change your hair cut,wear shoes with lifts and pretend to be someone else.

Id say people who work at stars can probably access your addresses etc and playing history including win/loss amounts quite easily if they know your screen name or rl name and some other info.

This does seem potentially a bit paranoid though... I mean the guy had a funny look on his face and then muttered something about pokerstars. Hardly enough to make a thread in nvg. Maybe ask in the stars thread?

It will be just like any business in banking & finance so the answer is, not "any co-worker"

Different personnel would have different levels of access to player data. Information such as credit card details, passwords, home address, real name would be unavailable to nearly all workers. People such as those in marketing would only have access to relevant reports on overall player statistics & no access to even screen names.

All queries of the database will be logged going back years so it will be possible to see which terminal accessed what individual records.

Regarding this "co-worker" who may have accessed your details. If s/he did & if your PokerStars looked into the matter, then they will not be telling you ever what actions they have taken against the worker. No point in asking them.

P.S. dump your friend

yes he would be able to see your basic information such as telephone number, name, address etc. Abilities to check other info and make administrative changes depends on the authoritative level of the employee but the info would be there. And as you can see from any Pokerstars video they have released they do not enforce a "paperless" policy in the office which I'd think would be standard at any company dealing with privacy information or credit cards but again, this is pokerstars who essentially police themselves, do no wrong and offer flawless everything, even with the plethora of scandals the last couple years.

Short answer, yes if someone can access your account administratively they can at the very least see your information to verify your account details etc. They would also be able to see your banking info or any other information they request to verify your account. I won't say exactly how they handle it but of course there are different levels of authority that have access to different aspect of account settings/privileges etc. It is also very compartmentalized but if you make friends in other departments and share info you know what the capabilities are. There are also offices throughout the world such as Australia, etc which can handle different processes.

In most of Europe it would be a criminal offence, so OP is entitled to know if his personal information has been accessed without authorisation.

This. There will be "logs" kept ( they use a different term) which shows the ID of personal who make account changes like issue refunds, chat bans, and also sections in the system available for extensive note documentation. There are also other advanced administrative functions only accessible by high level security personal You won;t find this in any of the videos they made. But back to my original point, yes he would be able to access basic information at the least and since they don't seem to enforce a paperless or no cell phone policy you're kinda rolling the dice on the protection of your data. In the end you're hoping any employee doesn't act nefariously

of course! And also of pretty much any people they dont know in person

There should be a record each time an agent in PokerStars looks up someones account. If an agent doesnt have a good reason to be looking at the account then action may well be taken.

Simply ask for this to be escalated or hope that a Stars Rep sees your post here and passes it onto mgmt. If you post your PokerStars username it will help any such reps. If you dont then you might get a PM from one of them asking you for it.

If you also post specifics on this then it would help them narrow it down - rough dates this happened on, etc

In my email to PS, I referred to the financial industry where staff members in a bank used to check out accounts of everyone they know in person. Therefore banks keep logs of this and can fire staff members nowadays. My dad works for a health insurance company, and by the same token he can get in trouble for checking out peoples details without a very good reason.

I asked stars if they backtrack what coworkers are checking out player accounts, but got no answer to that question. Twice

So therefore I assume they either do not keep logs or they don't want to tell me that my privacy was indeed violated.

Maybe I am being paranoid, but ethically I have a problem with it. Regardless, it will not affect my future plans anyway.

OP has no indication anything happend. "a strange grin" and "he knows people at pokerstars"

this is like someone asking me if I got a taxreturn aswell, and mentioning a pal of his works at the tax office...the next day im paranoid on the phone wanting to speak to managers. lols.

I think this is more an indication of OP being a bit paranoid of the company he keeps..maybe rightfully so.

What about the much more likely possibility that they do keep logs, but don't provide their exact security procedures/policies anyone who asks?

It seems like you sort of beat around the bush with them rather than just outright asking them what you want to know - "has anyone accessed my information in the last few weeks"?

So what are you exactly hiding for your friends? What's the big secret?

ITS a TARP !! Dont fall for it OP, thats you friend. the strange grin en mentioning pokerstars was just the bait

OP,

Thoughts on starting this god-awful thread in the first place? Please reflect

Maybe he was just grinning cos he knew you were fo sho lying about biggest downswing being only 15BI in HUSNG while playing 8hrs/day

Why didn't you just talk to the person in question?
Ask him what is up.
If he is sharing with a room full of people do you think he would answer a direct question?

you think he really went back into that room?

If you have nothing constructive to say, you're better off not posting at all

Because he would deny that anything is going on. You don't expect honesty and transparency of a person who would do this in the first place, and we're not very close. I just wanted to know if it is possible. I'm glad that the logs do exist, and that there is some type of hierarchy at PS

This is the same kid who used to claim his uncle works for Nintendo.

He already knew you play poker. It's not a huge leap that you have a PS account.

Are you trying to silence this entire forum?

Confront your friend. Simple as that. If he is your friend he will tell you the truth.

Better to poison him and then offer the antidote when he tells you the truth. If you don't like the truth, throw the antidote out the window of a 10 storey building and he will dive out after it. Pretty standard line here.

False nose and glasses.