TRACE sends a small amount of anonymous usage data by default, looks up the fastest public lap for your car and track in the Live Dashboard (also on by default, and switchable), and lets you optionally submit lap times to a public leaderboard — with an optional free account if you want your name on it. Here's exactly what each of those is, and how to control them — plus what this website itself collects and the optional AI support chat, which are separate things.
Each time you launch Live Dashboard, Lap Analyst, or Race Analyst, TRACE sends one small anonymous record. This is on by default — you can turn it off any time with the SHARE USAGE DATA checkbox in the Live Dashboard’s Preferences row.
Field
What it is
event
Which action happened — e.g. "app launch"
tool
Which tool was opened — dashboard, lap analyst, or race analyst
version
Your installed TRACE version, e.g. 0.8.1
os
Windows, macOS, Linux, or Android
timestamp
When the launch happened
That's the whole record. Five fields, nothing else. It's used only to see which tools actually get used and whether people are on a current version — nothing more.
// on by default
Update Check
Each time the Launcher opens, TRACE asks GitHub whether a newer release exists, so it can show a small “new version available” banner. It’s a plain request to GitHub’s public releases page for this project, and it goes to GitHub, not to our database. TRACE doesn’t put your version, an ID or any usage data in it — just a fixed “TRACE-updater” label — but as with any web request, GitHub can see your IP address, under GitHub’s own privacy policy. If you’re offline it fails silently.
To turn it off, untick CHECK FOR UPDATES in the Live Dashboard’s Preferences row, right beside SHARE USAGE DATA. It’s saved to your settings.json and applies from the next time TRACE starts — no file editing needed.
// on by default
Top-Lap Ghost
The Live Dashboard shows your live gap to the fastest public leaderboard lap for the car and track you’re on. To do that it makes one read-only request to the leaderboard database once your car and track are both known and have stayed the same for a few seconds in a run (so typing a name by hand doesn’t send a request per letter), and once more for each new car or track you switch to — never again for the same pair. It fetches a single lap, the fastest current-era one, and nothing is uploaded. If you’re offline, or nobody has set a lap yet, it fails silently and the gap just stays blank.
Track auto-detect. GT7 doesn’t tell TRACE which track you’re on, so the Dashboard recognises it from where a lap starts. On launch it makes one read-only request for the shared list of known start points (layout name, start position, heading) and caches it. Learned start points are kept on your PC in track_fingerprints.json. When SHARE USAGE DATA is on, each time you confirm a new start point on a known layout, TRACE also sends that layout’s name, the start position and heading in game-world coordinates (not GPS), and the lap length — nothing about you, your car or your lap time. With SHARE USAGE DATA off, nothing is sent; you still receive the shared list.
Sent in the request
What it is
car_name
The car shown in the Dashboard’s CAR box
track_name
The track shown in the Dashboard’s TRACK box
(nothing else)
No account, no PSN name, no lap or telemetry data. The request uses the same public read-only key as the leaderboard page
You get back one public lap — its time, the display name its owner typed, and its compact trace. As with any web request, the database host can see your IP address. To stop it entirely, untick TOP-LAP GHOST in the Live Dashboard’s Preferences row: with it off, the Dashboard makes no leaderboard requests at all.
// off by default · stays on your network
Metrics Export (Grafana)
If you tick METRICS in the Live Dashboard header, TRACE starts a small web server on your own PC that publishes live gauges for Grafana or any Prometheus scraper: speed, RPM, throttle, brake, fuel, current lap time and a “connected” flag. It is off by default, and nothing is sent to the internet — TRACE doesn’t upload these values anywhere, it only lets something you point at it read them.
METRICS only: the server listens on 127.0.0.1 (this PC), port 9109, so only programs on your own computer can read it
METRICS + ALLOW REMOTE: it listens on every network interface, so any device on your Wi-Fi/LAN can read your live telemetry. There is no password or login on the endpoint. Use it only on a network you trust
Turn it off by unticking METRICS, or just leave it off. Both switches are saved to settings.json.
// never collected
What Never Leaves Your PC
This section is about the TRACE desktop app. This website is separate and is covered further down under This Website.
No PSN name, username, or account identity
No telemetry data — speed, inputs or lap times. Car and track names leave your PC only in the cases described on this page (the Dashboard’s top-lap lookup, leaderboard submissions, the community inbox and, if SHARE USAGE DATA is on, track auto-detect’s start-point sharing)
No IP address stored in our own database
No location data
No files, laps, or recordings from your computer
Data submitted to any opt-in feature — like the leaderboard below — is separate, always explicit (a button you click), and disclosed in full right here.
// opt-in, one button click
Global Lap Leaderboard
Submitting a lap to the leaderboard is never automatic — it only happens when you press "Submit to Leaderboard" in Lap Analyst. Here's exactly what's sent for each submission:
Field
What it is
car_name
The car you were driving
track_name
The track you were on
lap_time_ms
Your lap time
psn_name
The name you typed into the submit dialog — self-reported, not read from your PlayStation account
user_id
Your anonymous account ID (see Free Account below), attached only if you’re signed in. The database requires it so a lap belongs to an account; it isn’t shown on the public leaderboard
samples
A compact per-sample trace of the lap — track position, speed, throttle, brake, steering, and gear only. No GPS coordinates, no other telemetry channels
The leaderboard itself is public — any lap you submit, along with the PSN name you typed in, is visible to anyone using TRACE via the Top-10 panel and can be downloaded as a ghost lap. Don't submit under a name you don't want publicly associated with that lap time.
Every submission passes through server-side anti-cheat before it can appear: a lap that's physically impossible for that track's length is rejected outright, a suspiciously fast first time for a car and track is held in a private review queue instead of publishing immediately, and only laps set since GT7 update 1.71's physics overhaul are shown. Both checks run in the database itself, not in the app.
If GT7 reports a car ID that isn't in the local database yet, or you type a track name that isn't in the picker, that name/ID is also submitted automatically to a shared community inbox — this one isn't a button you press, but it only ever sends the car ID or track name itself, nothing else about your session. It isn’t controlled by the SHARE USAGE DATA checkbox, so unticking that doesn’t stop it.
The public leaderboard page on this website reads from the same database anonymously — no login, no account, nothing stored about you as a visitor. Its "can't find your car/track?" boxes write to that same community inbox, and only ever send the name (and, optionally, a numeric car ID) you type in — never anything else about your visit.
// optional, skippable in one click
Free Account
The first time you open TRACE, it offers a free account so a leaderboard submission ties to something real instead of a self-typed name anyone could fake. Creating one is entirely optional — skip it and everything except submitting a lap still works exactly the same: viewing the leaderboard, downloading ghost laps, and the consensus line all stay fully available.
Field
What it is
display_name
Whatever name you type when creating the account. Note this is stored separately from the psn_name above — the name shown on a leaderboard row is the one you type in the submit dialog each time, not this one
account ID
An anonymous identifier created via Supabase's anonymous sign-in — no email, no password, ever
That's it — a display name and an anonymous ID, nothing else. No email address is asked for or stored, no password exists to leak, and nothing ties the account to your PlayStation identity, your real name, or anything else about you. It exists purely so a leaderboard row belongs to a real (if anonymous) account rather than any name a submission form happens to have typed into it.
Staying signed in. Your session is stored on your PC (encrypted with a key kept in a separate local file). Access tokens are short-lived, so if a lap submission is rejected because yours has expired, TRACE sends your stored refresh token to the same database to get a new one and retries once. That only ever happens during a submission you started — it isn’t a background check — and the request carries the token and nothing about your laps or telemetry. Creating the account sends the display name you typed along with the sign-up.
Skipped it and changed your mind? Sign up any time from the tool menu — nothing is lost, and there's no penalty for waiting.
Because there's no email or password, logging out of an account can't be undone — the app warns you before it does. Accounts that never set a display name and never submitted a lap are deleted automatically after 30 days (these are almost all created by automated security scanners that test public packages, not by people). An account with a name or any submitted lap is never removed by this.
// this website · only when you use it
AI Support Chat
Most pages on this site have a small Ask TRACE chat button. Nothing is sent when a page loads or when you open the chat — a request is only made when you type a question and press send. The desktop app never uses it.
Sent when you ask
What it is
your messages
The question you typed, plus the last few messages of that chat (up to 6, each cut to 800 characters) so the answer has context
model choice
Which model you picked in the dropdown: Flash-Lite or Groq
(nothing else)
No account, no PSN name, no telemetry, and no laps or files from your PC
Your messages go to a small relay run by the TRACE developer (a Cloudflare Worker), which adds TRACE’s own documentation and forwards the question to one AI service: Google’s Gemini API or Groq, depending on your choice, or Cloudflare Workers AI as an automatic backup if the one you picked is busy. TRACE doesn’t save your questions or the answers. Those services handle what they receive under their own policies — and Google’s free-tier terms in particular may allow submitted content to be used to improve its products — so don’t type anything personal, like a PSN name, email address or password.
As with any web request, Cloudflare (which runs the relay) can see your IP address. The relay holds it in memory for about a minute only to limit how many questions one visitor can send, and doesn’t store it. The chat remembers which model you picked in your browser’s local storage on your own device, and nothing else — the conversation itself disappears when you close or refresh the page.
Answers are AI-generated and can be wrong. If something looks off or the bot can’t help, open a GitHub issue. If you’d rather not use it, just don’t open the chat — nothing is sent until you do.
// this website, not the app
This Website
Everything above is about the TRACE desktop app. This site — gt7trace.netlify.app — does two things of its own, and they run whether or not you ever download TRACE.
What
What it does
Google Analytics
Loaded on every page of this site (measurement ID G-1DRKJH6JTG). Google records the usual web-analytics signals — pages visited, referrer, approximate location, device and browser, and a cookie-based visitor ID. Unlike the in-app ping, this is Google's product and runs under Google's privacy policy; your IP address reaches Google as part of any web request.
Download counter
Clicking a download button on the Setup page sends one record to the same Supabase project used by the app, containing a single field: which platform you clicked (windows, linux, macos, or source). Nothing else — no identifier, no session, no page history. It's fire-and-forget and never delays or blocks the download.
Neither of these touches the app. The TRACE desktop app never loads this website, never loads Google Analytics, and never reports anything about your browsing. Blocking analytics in your browser — or just not visiting this site — has no effect on how TRACE works.
To opt out of the Google Analytics side, any standard content blocker or Google's own opt-out browser add-on will do it. The download counter has no personal data to opt out of, but a content blocker will stop it too.
// the fine print
How It's Used
The app analytics, leaderboard, account and download-counter data are all stored in a Supabase project controlled by the TRACE developer. None of it is sold, and none of it is shared with third parties. (Google Analytics and the AI services behind the support chat are the exceptions to "no third parties" and are called out separately above — that data lives with them, not with us.) Usage analytics exists purely to answer questions like "is anyone actually using Race Analyst" and "did people update to the latest version." Leaderboard and account data exists to run the leaderboard, ghost-lap download, and consensus racing-line features — none of it is used to track anyone individually beyond the display name shown on a public leaderboard row. The support chat is separate again: TRACE doesn’t store your questions or the answers at all.
Questions about this page or a data request: reach out via GitHub Issues.