How to Protect Personal Information on Twitter

Did you know that X (formerly Twitter) allows anyone to call you directly and see your real IP address? 

Not many of us are aware of this, but this is a nightmare for online privacy. 

Anyone can use your IP address to check your physical location and steal private information without consent. 

But there are many other ways hackers and scammers use to get your private data and use it to their advantage. 

How Does Twitter Collect Your Data?

Twitter gathers information through activity tracking in addition to provided data. At signup, you voluntarily give information such as name, email address, and phone number. 

This data allows for understanding user trends, offering targeted advertisements, and personalizing the platform. Additionally, data may be obtained from external websites and applications linked to Twitter.

What are the Types of Information Twitter Gathers?

Like many other social media platforms, Twitter gathers much user data to improve its services, target advertising, and user experience. Below is an outline of the different kinds of data that Twitter collects:

Personal Data

Twitter collects basic account details such as your username, display name, profile picture, bio, location, website, date of birth, email address, phone number, or payment information.

Activity-Based Data

It tracks everything you do with the apps, including what you tweet, retweet, like, reply to, and engage with others. It also tracks your direct messages, login history, device details, IP address, browser type, location data, and interests and preferences.

Third-Party Information

Certain apps and websites may share information about you with Twitter if you use them to log in. Twitter engages with advertisers to gather data about your online activities to show relevant advertisements.

Why is it Important to Understand Twitter's Privacy Policy?

Handling ethical and legal issues is easier if you understand the privacy policy. It guarantees that how you use Twitter is consistent with your values and allows you to hold Twitter responsible for its data practices.

Information Gathering and Use

Being aware of the data Twitter collects about you can help you gauge the size of your online presence on the network.

Data Sharing and Access

By outlining the policy, you can take control of your data and make educated decisions about how it is shared with third parties and accessible by Twitter.

Data Security

You may evaluate Twitter's commitment to security by knowing its steps to protect your personal information.

Privacy Settings

To manage who can view your information, follow the instructions in the policy.

Ad Targeting

If you know how Twitter uses your data for targeted advertising, you can choose your preferred ads more intelligently.

Content Control

You can better defend your rights if you know how Twitter handles disputes and the removal of content.

How to Protect Your Personal Information on Twitter

Like any other social media site, Twitter has the potential to be a target for data breaches and improper usage of user accounts.

Here are some crucial actions you should take to stay safe: 

Make Your Account Private

You can set your Twitter account to private by following the below-mentioned steps:

1. Launch the Twitter app, then navigate to your profile.

2. On your screen, tap the Settings and Privacy option in the upper right corner.

3. Choose Safety and privacy from the list of choices.

4. Turn "Protect my tweets" on, and when asked, provide your password.

5. To ensure your settings have been saved, tap Save Changes at the bottom of the screen.

Turn off Location Tagging

Today is #DataPrivacyDay2020 –– all about online privacy and data protection awareness. It’s the perfect time to check your privacy settings on Twitter! Head over to “Settings and privacy” from the main menu and follow along. 👇

— Support (@Support) January 28, 2020

Twitter tracks your IP address to determine your approximate location. It uses this information to show you personalized adverts and suggestions and lets you geotag your messages to let other users know where you are tweeting.

1. Open Twitter's settings and select Privacy and Safety to turn off geotagging. 

2. Locate information by swiping down and selecting Data sharing and off-Twitter behavior. 

3. Disable this option by tapping Add location information to your tweets.

Turn off Data Collection

Twitter uses all your internet activity, even while you're not using the social networking site, to create personalized suggestions and targeted adverts unless you change the default settings.

Twitter shares your details with its advertising partners and obtains some of this information from its partners.

Go to the Personalization options page to prevent Twitter from collecting and using your data. Twitter recently turned off the option to access the page through the settings menu when accessed using a web browser; therefore, 

1. To access the page, click the actual link.

2. Toggle off Personalization and data by clicking on the toggle next to it. 

3. To confirm the selection, choose Disable in the dialogue window that appears.

Block Third-Party Apps

You have access to your account, and you may be able to access your personal information and manage accounts by following or unfollowing them. 

If privacy is important to you, examine which third-party services and apps have access to your account and take steps to restrict that access.

1. Open Twitter settings and select Security and Account Access to accomplish this. 

2. After choosing Sessions and Apps, select Connected Apps. 

3. Evaluate the list of services and apps that can access your profile. 

4. Click an app and choose Revoke app permissions to prevent it from accessing your account.

With PurePrivacy, you can protect your identity from hackers and scammers, remove publicly available data, scan the dark web for your information, and enhance social media privacy settings with our assistance. 

Scan the Dark Web 24/7 

You can use Dark Web Monitoring to receive instant notifications if your personal information is found on the dark web, so you can take quick action.

Block Intrusive, Online Trackers  

You can use Tracker Blocker to prevent your personal information from being collected by websites and third-party trackers and maintain anonymity of your online activities.

Send Automated Opt-Out Requests  

You can use the Remove My Data option to opt-out of unwanted sites by evaluating the quantity of personal data and stay informed about the progress of the requests that data brokers have.

Auto-Delete or Hide Posts

You can get Social Privacy Manager to reduce your online presence and the risk of online data breaches, automatically delete or hide outdated social media posts.

In Conclusion!

It's critical to protect private information on Twitter and prevent anyone from stealing data. 

Be wary of privacy settings and avoid sharing personal information with strangers online. 
You can also consider using PurePrivacy with a VPN to stop malicious actors from harvesting your information and committing identity theft.