Privacy violations
Last Updated:
March 20, 2025
Policy rationale
Our services aim to protect the privacy and personal information of our users. We work hard to safeguard your personal identity and information and we do not allow people to post certain types of personal or confidential information about themselves or of others. We also provide people ways to report imagery that people believe to be in violation of their privacy rights.
We remove content that shares, offers, or solicits personally identifiable information or other private information that could lead to physical or financial harm, including financial, residential and medical information, as well as private information obtained from illegal sources. We recognise that private information may become publicly available through news coverage, court filings, press releases or other sources. When that happens, we may allow the information to be posted.
We have additional restrictions for paid content. Although we allow ads that provide a positive user experience by focusing on the product's or service's details, we remove ads that exploit users' personal hardships, appear to make negative or inaccurate characterisations about them, or imply knowledge of sensitive personal information. For more information on our privacy rules for paid content, see our Advertising Standard on Privacy Violations and Personal Attributes.
We do not allow:
Content that shares or asks for private information, either on our services or through external links, as follows:
Personally identifiable information (PII)
Content sharing personally identifiable information (information that uniquely identifies an individual) of the poster or others. This includes:
National identification numbers such as social security numbers (SSN), passport numbers or individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITIN).
Government IDs of law enforcement, military or security personnel.
Records or official documentation of civil registry information such as marriage, birth, death, name change or gender recognition documents
Immigration and work status documents such as green cards, work permits or visas
Content asking for personally identifiable information of others
Personal contact information
Content sharing personal contact information of others, except when made public by the individual or when shared or solicited to promote charitable causes, facilitate finding missing people, animals or owners of missing objects, or contact a business or service provider (unless it is established that the personal contact information is shared without the consent of the individual).
Residential information
Content sharing full private residential addresses of others, including building name or pins on a map identifying the address (even if the pins are in an off-platform link), except in the following contexts:
when shared to promote charitable causes, facilitate finding missing people, animals or owners of missing objects, or contact a business or service providers
when the residence is an official residence or embassy provided to a high-ranking public official
Content sharing partial private residential addresses of others (except when the residence is an official residence or embassy provided to a high-ranking public official):
When shared in the context of organising protests or surveillance of the resident and the location of the residence is identified by any one of the following:
Street
Town/city or neighbourhood (only for towns/cities with fewer than 50,000 residents)
Postal code
GPS pins or pins on a map identifying any of these (even if the pins are in an off-platform link)
Imagery that displays the external view of private residences if all of the following conditions apply:
The residence is a single-family home, or the resident's unit number/building name is identified in the image/caption.
The location of the residence is identified by any one of the following:
Street
Town/city or neighbourhood (only for towns/cities with fewer than 50,000 residents)
Postal code
GPS pins or pins on a map identifying any of these (even if the pins are in an off-platform link)
The content identifies the resident(s).
Either that resident objects to the exposure of their private residence, or there is context of organising protests against the resident.
The imagery of the residence is not being shared because the residence is the focus of a news story (except when shared in the context of organising protests against the resident)
Content asking for private residential information of others (except when the residence is an official residence or embassy provided to a high-ranking public official)
Content asking for location of safe houses or exposes information about safe houses by sharing any of the below (except when the safe house is actively promoting information about their facility)
Actual address (note: "Post Box only" is allowed)
Images of the safe house
Identifiable city/neighbourhood of the safe house
Information exposing the identity of the safe house residents
Medical information
Content sharing or asking for medical, psychological, biometric or genetic/hereditary information of others (including when displayed visually or shared through audio or video), when it is clear that the information comes from medical records or other official documents.
Financial information
Content sharing or asking for personal financial information about the poster or others, defined as information about a person's individual finances including:
Non-public financial records or statements.
Bank account numbers with security or PIN codes.
Digital payment method information with login details, security or PIN codes.
Credit or debit card information with validity dates or security PINs or codes.
Content sharing or asking for non-public financial information of a business or organisation, defined as information about a business' or organisation's finances, except when originally shared by the organisation itself (including subsequent shares with the original context intact) or shared through public reporting requirements (for example as required by stock exchanges or regulatory agencies), including:
Non-public financial records or statements
Bank account numbers accompanied by security or PIN codes.
Digital payment method information accompanied by login details, security or PIN codes.
Information obtained from hacked sources
Content claimed by the poster or confirmed to come from a hacked source, regardless of whether the affected person is a public figure or a private individual.
The following content also may be removed:
A reported photo or video of people where the person depicted in the image is:
A minor under the age of 13, and the content was reported by the minor or a parent or legal guardian.
A minor between the ages of 13 and 18 years old, and the content was reported by the minor.
An adult, where the content was reported by the adult from outside the United States and applicable law may provide rights to removal.
Any person who is incapacitated and unable to report the content on their own.
For the following Community Standards, we require additional information and/or context to enforce:
Depictions of individuals and medical facilities, defined as content that displays an individual in a medical or health facility or a private individual or minor entering or exiting a medical or health facility, and is reported by:
The person in the image
A representative of the person in the image
The medical or health facility with care responsibilities for the person in the image, or
The medical or health facility that employs the person in the image
Source material that purports to reveal non-public information relevant to an election shared as part of a foreign government influence operation.
We remove reporting on such a leak by state-controlled media entities from the country behind the leak.