Privacy on camera
This page is for video creators, streamers and journalists who show Exponential on screen. A content management system holds people's data: user accounts, e-mail addresses, form submissions, orders, newsletter subscribers, log entries. Nothing of that belongs in a recording unless the person agreed. The easy rule: record on demo data only.
Contents
- Use demo data
- Screens that hold personal data
- People in the recording
- If personal data was shown
- A pre-recording check
Use demo data
Record on an installation you set up for the purpose, never on a production site or a client's administration
(Setting up a demo installation). Create fictional users with names like
"Demo Editor" and e-mail addresses at example.com, which is reserved for examples. The advocates' page
Protecting people's privacy has the same rules for talks and posts.
Screens that hold personal data
| Screen in the administration | What it can show | Do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Users and roles | Names, user names, e-mail addresses | Show it only with fictional users |
| Shop: orders and customers | Names, addresses, order contents | Use demo orders, or skip |
| Collected information, forms | Whatever visitors typed | Use your own test submissions |
| Newsletters | Subscriber lists | Skip, or use test subscribers |
| Logs, the audit trail, the debug bar | IP addresses, user names, paths, sometimes host names | Show on a fresh demo only; crop |
| Setup and system information | Host names, paths, versions of server software | Crop or blur; see Keeping secrets off screen |
| E-mail clients next to the browser | Real inboxes | Close them |
People in the recording
- Guests: ask before recording, tell them where it will be published, and let them review what they showed on their own screen.
- Live chat: viewers' names appear on screen; follow the platform's rules, and do not read out personal details.
- Questions with screenshots from viewers: do not show a viewer's administration on stream; ask them to describe the problem, or to send a screenshot with personal data removed.
- Customers and employers: never name a site's owner as a user of Exponential without their written consent (Privacy in your coverage).
If personal data was shown
- Stop or cut the recording; for a live stream, end the scene with the data.
- Remove or edit the published video quickly; blur the frames or re-upload.
- If a password, token or key was shown, change it at once.
- Tell the affected person what happened, if you know who it is.
- Note in the description that the video was edited, without repeating the data (Correcting a video or post).
Laws on personal data differ by country; when you are unsure about your duties, ask someone who knows the rules where you publish.
A pre-recording check
[ ] Demo installation, not production
[ ] Only fictional users, at example.com addresses
[ ] No orders, forms, newsletters or logs with real data
[ ] E-mail, chat and notification pop-ups closed
[ ] Browser history and autocomplete cleared or a clean profile used
[ ] Guests asked and informedRelated pages
- Keeping secrets off screen
- Live stream guide
- Protecting people's privacy
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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