Protecting your personal information
Thanks to the Internet, everyone is more connected and information is more accessible than ever. As a result, many people have growing concerns about protecting their personal information. Read on to learn more about what you can do to protect your personal information.
- Remember Twitter is a public space
- Think before you Tweet
- Learn and control your settings
- Keep your account secure
If someone shares your personal information on Twitter:
What You Can Do
Remember Twitter is a public space
Part of what makes Twitter great is that its an open platform for communication and a great resource for sharing information. Most of the communication taking place on Twitter is public and viewable by everyone. Since the information posted is public, some of this data may be made available or republished on other websites.
If you want your Tweets only to be available to approved followers, you can protect your Tweets. Please keep in mind that any Tweets posted before they were protected may be available in search or through third party sites.
Think before you Tweet
You are in control of how much information you share on Twitter or any other website. Don’t post information you consider to be private (like a credit card number or home address), and be thoughtful about when you want to publicly share your location.
People are not always who they claim to be online; be wary of any communication that asks for your private contact information, personal information, or passwords. Think about how much information you provide on your profiles and ask yourself the following questions:
- Who am I sharing this information with?
- How much and what type of information am I sharing?
- Can I trust all the people that see this information?
To learn more about protecting your images online, check out our article on protecting your online photos.
Learn and control your settings
Getting to know and controlling your settings is an important part of helping protect your information. There are several steps you can take such as protecting your Tweets and being smart with geolocation. For detailed information read this article: Learn and Control your Settings.
Keep your account secure
Learning about account security and taking proactive steps to keep your account secure will help protect your information. For detailed information read Keeping Your Account Secure.
If someone shares your personal information on Twitter
If someone is using your information inappropriately or without your permission, here are steps you can take.
Communicate and respect personal boundaries
Not everyone has the same definition of what is considered private and what should be shared. If a friend or connection has posted information you prefer to be kept private, contact them and ask them to take down the content. Likewise, be considerate of others. If someone requests you remove information that you posted about them, please respect their privacy and consider taking it down. This Twitter Support article explains how to delete a Tweet.
Report a violation
If someone has posted your personal information and refuses to take it down, review our policy about private information posted on Twitter. If the account is violating our policy, then you can file a report here and we will investigate the account. If the account is in violation, we will temporarily suspend the account.