Twitter says it wants to be more upfront about the way it handles user data, and has launched a new Privacy Center with that goal in mind.
Admitting that “we have room for improvement” when it comes to communicating with its users about how it protects their privacy, Twitter on Monday explained what the new Privacy Center is all about.
In a blog post, it said the aim is to provide “more clarity around what we’re doing to protect the information people share with us,” describing the center as “the central place that hosts everything that’s part of our privacy and data protection work: Related initiatives, announcements, new privacy products, and communication about security incidents.”
The center will also act as a place to find and learn more about how the San Francisco-based company is working to keep user data secure, with information on what data it collects, how it’s used, and the privacy controls available to users.
“We believe companies should be accountable to the people that trust them with their personal information, and responsible not only to protect that information but to explain how they do it,” the company said.
Twitter said that while it has always offered a level of privacy by letting people on its platform create pseudonymous accounts and control who sees their tweets, there are “teams across the company” constantly working behind the scenes to protect users’ privacy and data.
Such work has three areas of focus, the company said. First, it works to fix what it describes as “technical debt,” where site issues — both privacy- and security-related — arise as new features and services are built on top of older systems. Second, it focuses on building effective privacy into all new products that it launches. And third, it endeavors to remain accountable to the people that use the platform and who trust the company to handle their data responsibly.
In a move toward greater transparency with its community, Twitter has been communicating more data and security issues over the last two years. At the start of this year, for example, it reported it had found a bug that revealed the tweets of protected accounts, while in the spring it apologized after it emerged it had mistakenly stored the location data of some users.
“Privacy and data protection is the heart of our 2020 companywide priority to build products that earn the trust of people who use them,” Twitter said.
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