Fortnite Tracker Updates Privacy Settings After Epic API Changes

Fortnite’s massive community is facing a quiet but significant revolution. If you regularly check your kill-death ratios, win streaks, or regional standings, things are about to look very different. Epic Games has rolled out its latest developer API updates, and the fallout is hitting third-party stat trackers hard.

The biggest casualty? Fortnite Tracker. Run by the Tracker Network (TRN), the site has served as the go-to scoreboard for the game’s competitive scene since 2017. For years, anyone could type a player’s username into a search bar and instantly see their career history. That open-door policy is officially over.

Why the sudden change?

It all comes down to user privacy. Epic Games is tightening security across all its developer tools, forcing third-party sites to adapt to a strict, consent-first ecosystem. Under the new Chapter 7 API rules, player data is no longer public by default. If a player wants their stats to show up on Fortnite Tracker, they have to actively choose to share them.

This is a massive pivot. Previously, players had to go out of their way to hide their statistics. Now, the burden is reversed. If you do not explicitly opt-in, you do not exist on the leaderboards. It is a win for privacy advocates, but a massive headache for the community.

How to keep tracking your stats

For those who still want to show off their achievements, the process requires a few manual steps. Players need to boot up Fortnite, head into the main menu, and open the “Account and Privacy” settings. From there, they must scroll down to the “Gameplay Privacy” section and toggle “Public Game Stats” to “On.”

But that is only half the battle. Tracker Network has also updated its backend to comply with Epic’s new standards. Users must now log into the Fortnite Tracker website using their Epic Games credentials to verify ownership of their accounts. This secure handshake ensures that players are only tracking themselves, or those who have willingly opened their profiles to the public.

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A direct response to regulatory pressure

Epic’s move isn’t happening in a vacuum. Over the past few years, global regulators have turned up the heat on gaming giants. Epic Games itself paid a record-breaking $520 million settlement to the FTC in 2022 over allegations of privacy violations and deceptive practices targeting younger players. Since then, the developer has taken a proactive approach to safety. Restricting API access is simply the latest step in protecting minors and casual users from unwanted exposure.

For kids playing Fortnite, their accounts are now locked down tight. Parents do not have to worry about strangers monitoring their child’s play times or match histories through external websites. For Epic, the legal peace of mind is worth the disruption to the competitive ecosystem.

The impact on the competitive scene

While the privacy benefits are clear, the competitive community is feeling the pinch. Local and global leaderboards are currently looking a lot emptier. Many top-tier casual players and rising stars simply do not know about the new API requirements yet. As a result, they have vanished from the rankings.

“It feels like we’re playing in the dark,” says Marcus “Apex” Jenkins, an amateur tournament organizer. “We used to verify tournament placements and player history instantly through Fortnite Tracker. Now, we have to manually ask every single participant to change their settings and take screenshots. It slows down the entire tournament flow.”

Tracker Network is working overtime to educate the community. They have launched social media campaigns and added prominent banners to their homepage, guiding players through the opt-in process. Still, they expect a permanent drop in the total number of tracked players. The era of the completely open leaderboard is dead, replaced by a secure, albeit fractured, network of players who opt to share their data.