Twitter revamps policies to comply with privacy laws

Twitter on Monday announced that it is revamping its policies around the world to comply with online privacy laws in California and the European Union, a complicated process that will leave some users with more safeguards around their personal information than others.

For most users around the world, Twitter is tweaking its policies to better comply with the incoming California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), a tough set of privacy protections that goes into effect in January 2020. The controversial California law requires tech companies like Twitter to share information about what they know about users and offer users more opportunities to see and delete the data that tech companies have collected about them.

But Twitter will hold users in the European Union (EU) to a different privacy standard, the Twitter standard. The Twitter International Company will provide services to users in the EU, while Twitter Inc. — a separate entity based in San Francisco — will handle the accounts of users in other countries and the U.S.

Previously, the Dublin, Ireland-based Twitter International Company provided services to all Twitter users outside of the U.S. But now, in order to ensure that Twitter does not have to comply with European privacy rules all around the world, it will place those users under the U.S.-based Twitter Inc.’s jurisdiction.

In its policy update on Monday, Twitter said it hopes to “test features and settings” globally that would not be allowed under Europe’s tough privacy rules, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The company did not specify exactly what its engineers hope to test out.