Fortnite Tracker Overhauls Leaderboards Over Epic Privacy Changes
Epic Games’ upcoming Chapter 7 privacy updates are forcing Fortnite Tracker to rebuild its public leaderboard system from scratch.
For years, checking your stats after a long gaming session has been a ritual for Fortnite players. You wrap up a match, load up Fortnite Tracker, and see exactly where you rank globally. But that routine is about to change. With Epic Games introducing strict new privacy settings in Chapter 7, the web’s most popular stat-tracking platform is being forced to completely overhaul how its public leaderboards work.
The issue comes down to how player data is shared. In the upcoming Chapter 7 update, Epic Games plans to make player stats private by default. Currently, unless you actively change your settings, your match history, kill-death ratio, and win counts are open to the public. Third-party sites use Epic’s API to pull this information and compile massive global databases. Soon, that open door will swing shut.
The End of Passive Tracking
Tracker Network, the organization behind Fortnite Tracker, announced they have to change their entire approach to data collection. Because accounts will default to private, the site can no longer automatically scrape data to build its competitive ladders. Instead, they are moving to a strict opt-in system.
This means if you want your name to show up on regional or global leaderboards, you will have to do the legwork yourself. The days of passive tracking are officially over.
To keep showing up on the leaderboards, players will need to complete a two-step process:
- Log into the Fortnite Tracker website and manually link their Epic Games account.
- Navigate to Fortnite’s in-game “Account and Privacy” menu and toggle the “Show on Leaderboards” option to public.
If a player skips either of these steps, they simply won’t exist on the public leaderboards anymore. Their stats will remain hidden from the community.
Why Epic is Making the Shift
Epic’s decision is not just a random design tweak. Game developers face rising pressure from regulators globally to protect younger players. Because Fortnite has an enormous player base under the age of 18, defaulting accounts to private is a straightforward way for Epic to shield kids from unwanted tracking and online harassment.
While this is a clear win for user privacy, it presents a massive technical challenge for community-run platforms. Tracker Network expects their leaderboard numbers to drop significantly at first. Getting millions of casual players to manually opt-in and link their accounts takes time, and many may never bother to do it.
What This Means for Competitive Play
For casual gamers, keeping stats private might actually be a relief. No one likes having their bad games put on display. However, the competitive Fortnite community is feeling the pinch.
Aspiring professional players and tournament organizers rely heavily on these leaderboards. Teams use them to scout fresh talent, find reliable duo partners, and verify tournament placements. Without a centralized, automatic system, discovering raw, unsigned talent becomes a much harder task. Players will now have to actively market themselves and keep their profiles public if they want to get noticed by esports organizations.
Tracker Network is already testing the new authenticated leaderboard system ahead of the Chapter 7 launch. They are urging players who care about their ranks to link their accounts as soon as possible to avoid getting wiped from the databases when the update goes live. It is the end of an era for open gaming metrics, and it may set a precedent for how other major multiplayer titles handle player data in the future.
