Twitter Updates Privacy Policy, Effective January

(RTTNews) - Twitter said it launched a Twitter Privacy Center to provide more clarity about how the social media networking site protects the information people share with it. The company has also updated its global privacy policy, saying it will go into effect on January 1, 2020.

The new privacy center will act as a central place to keep users updated on the company's privacy and data protection work as well as help it in being accountable to users through transparency.

The updated site will host information related to Twitter's initiatives, announcements, new privacy products, and communication about security incidents.

The new privacy center splits information intended for the company's users and its partners. The company now has dedicated pages for General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, California Consumer Privacy Act or CCPA, and Data Processing Addendum or Global DPA.

Twitter said its privacy and data protection will focus on three areas - fixing technical debt, building privacy into all new products launched by the company, and accountability.

Tackling technical debt means upgrading older systems to support their current uses. Twitter noted that the work in this area will not only improve the privacy and safety of Twitter users, but will also help the company to get better products and services faster to users.

Twitter has also launched an internal group called Twitter Doves, which is designed to cultivate the best data privacy, security and management practices for everybody at the company.

As part of Twitter's efforts at accountability, Data Protection Officer Damien Kieran will provide to the company's board of directors an independent assessment of all privacy and data protection-related work every quarter.

Twitter said that the accounts of users living outside of the U.S. and the EU or European Economic Area, will now be moved to Twitter, Inc. from Twitter International Co. previously.

The company noted that the move will provide it with greater freedom to test features and settings that are likely to be restricted by the GDPR, Europe's digital privacy law.