Twitter’s new privacy center aims to be more transparent about user data

“Trust is earned, not given” is the motto for the Twitter “Doves,” an internal group of staffers “designed to cultivate the best data privacy, security and management practices for everyone at the company.”

That includes launching the Twitter Privacy Center, aimed at offering every user of the social network a look into what Twitter is doing to protect their data.

In a blog post published today, the company announced that new terms and a new privacy policy will go into effect on January 1.

Twitter additionally acknowledged that new services and features have been built on older systems and that “technical debt” was something they were committed to working on to ensure the user experience was as secure as possible. Part of this will be tackled by training every Twitter employee in data privacy, security, and management. The company has also polled users around the world to get feedback on what kind of controls they want, which varies from country to country. Finally, Twitter’s first data protection officer, Damien Kieran, a four-year veteran of the company, will continue to be responsible for quarterly reports to Twitter’s board of directors.

The privacy center states that more explanations will be made to users on everything from who can see a tweet to what happens when a user engages with advertising. However, these are extra steps that users may not be willing to take.

Fast Company reached out to Twitter to ask about this additional responsibility for the user. We will update this post when we hear back.

 

UPDATE: Twitter declined to provide further comment.