X/Twitter’s New Data-Hungry Privacy Policy Is Now Being Enforced

What the New X/Twitter Privacy Policy Asks For

X/Twitter seeks information about your personal and professional accounts, as well as payment information if you’re buying ads or a premium subscription.

Biometric data and job history

It’s these two bulletpoints from the new privacy policy that have upset some:

• Biometric Information. Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes.
• Job Applications / Recommendations. We may collect and use your personal information (such as your employment history, educational history, employment preferences, skills and abilities, job search activity and engagement, and so on) to recommend potential jobs for you, to share with potential employers when you apply for a job, to enable employers to find potential candidates, and to show you more relevant advertising.

This data is only collected if users chose to provide it, however. More information is collected behind the scenes, such as location data.

Encrypted messages

X/Twitter will even collect “metadata related to Encrypted Messages,” as the new policy explains in this section:

“How you interact with others on the platform, such as people you follow and people who follow you, metadata related to Encrypted Messages, and when you use Direct Messages, including the contents of the messages, the recipients, and date and time of messages.”

Your IP address, the apps on your phone, and more

Device information is another category that X/Twitter is interested in. As their policy states, this might include:

• Information about your connection, such as your IP address, browser type, and related information.
• Information about your device and its settings, such as device and advertising ID, operating system, carrier, language, memory, apps installed, and battery level.
• Your device address book, if you’ve chosen to share it.

Finally, the new policy wipes out the term “Twitter” in reference to the social media platform now known as “X.” It’s now called the “X Privacy Policy” rather than the “Current Privacy Policy.”