Update []: As highlighted to us by the excellent LuigiBlood, the data collection terms as they appear on the privacy policy page in the UK are more specific regarding how Nintendo says it will monitor and collect Gamechat video and audio recordings.
Specifically, it states that the previous three minutes of video and voice chat "may be recorded and stored for up to 24 hours on the User Devices of all users participating in a chat", meaning that the data would be stored locally on your Switch 2 and wouldn't be sent to Nintendo's servers unless a participating player reported an issue.
Here's a chunk of the relevant section (3.3) of the GB policy:
If you encounter any language or behaviour that may violate applicable laws, the Nintendo Account Agreement or NOE’s Community Guidelines, you may review the last 3 minutes of the relevant recorded communication content on your User Device and report it to NCL. In this case, the communication content, if it was stored on the User Device, and other information about the chat session (e.g. time and date of the chat, camera usage and traffic details) will be transmitted to NCL's servers. In order to support a safe and family-friendly online environment and to detect violations of the Nintendo Account Agreement and other harmful or illegal interactions, Nintendo may analyse the communication content and data transmitted and, if necessary, compare it with other data (such as the previous verification history and other Nintendo Account information of the user concerned). Under certain circumstances, Nintendo may also disclose specific information to third parties, such as authorities, courts or lawyers.
GDPR compliance in Europe requires Nintendo to give explicit details about how any data is stored, and it's unclear if the data collection process actually differs in the US. Given the associated work and server costs of potentially millions of GameChat users, you might assume not.
We've reached out to NOA for clarification and will update this article with any further information.
Original Story: Nintendo has updated its privacy policy to confirm that it may record video and audio from GameChat sessions on Switch 2.
As spotted by Nintendo Soup, the change from Nintendo has been enacted in order to "provide a safe and secure environment for certain of our services". The privacy policy also clarifies that consent from the user will need to be provided before Nintendo does this.
Here's what the privacy policy now states:
"Our services may allow you to create, upload or share content such as text, images, audio, video, your nickname and user icon, or other content that you create or is licensed to you. With your consent, and to enforce our terms, we may also monitor and record your video and audio interactions with other users."
And here's some additional information that goes toward providing some reasoning for the change:
"We clarified that we may collect, monitor and record audio and video of your chat sessions with other users to provide a safe and secure environment for certain of our services."
It does make sense from a safety perspective. Nintendo has already implemented a pretty strict measure to limit GameChat to approved users. First, you'll need to add someone to your friends list, then manually approve them for GameChat. So it's not like you'll be getting complete strangers joining your GameChat sessions, but an extra safety measure is always appreciated.
It's also been confirmed that children 15 or under will need to be approved via the Switch Parental Controls smart device app before using the GameChat service.