Privacy & Personal Information

Media.com is built around accountable publishing, but accountability does not mean that people lose control over their private information.

Do not publish or share another person's private or sensitive information without their consent where doing so creates a material risk of harm, harassment, exploitation or serious privacy intrusion.

These Rules protect privacy while preserving legitimate journalism, public-interest reporting, accountability, research, discussion of public figures and ordinary everyday communication.

These Rules govern user conduct on Media.com.

They are separate from Media.com's own Privacy Policy, which explains how Media.com collects and handles personal information.

These Rules may apply to:

• home addresses;
• precise locations;
• phone numbers;
• private email addresses;
• identity documents;
• government identifiers;
• financial information;
• medical information;
• private messages;
• login credentials;
• biometric information;
• images or recordings of people in private settings;
• immigration status;
• sexual orientation and gender identity;
• religious affiliation where sensitive;
• employment records;
• educational records;
• children's information; and
• other private or sensitive personal information.

Do not publish, share, request or threaten to publish another person's private information where:

• the person has not consented;
• the information is not appropriately public; and
• publication creates a material risk of harm, harassment, intimidation, exploitation, fraud or serious privacy intrusion.

Media.com may consider whether the information was already lawfully and appropriately public and whether republication materially increases risk.

Do not compile, publish or distribute private information about a person for the purpose of exposing, intimidating, threatening or facilitating harm against them.

This may include:

• publishing a home address;
• publishing a workplace with an implied threat;
• compiling personal details into a profile of a target;
• publishing a person's daily movements;
• encouraging others to contact or confront someone;
• exposing an anonymous person's identity to facilitate harassment; or
• combining separately available details into a materially more dangerous package.

Relevant conduct may also violate Bullying & Harassment or Violence & Threats.

Do not publish another person's residential address, precise home location, building access details or comparable location information without consent where publication creates a material safety or privacy risk.

Ordinary geographic references, business addresses of organizations and legitimately published official information may be treated differently.

Do not publish private phone numbers, personal email addresses or comparable private contact information without consent where publication creates a material risk of harassment, fraud or harm.

Publicly listed professional or organizational contact details may be permitted.

Do not publish another person's:

• passport;
• driver licence;
• national identity card;
• visa;
• birth certificate;
• social-security or tax identifier;
• government identifier; or
• comparable identity document or number.

Do not publish your own identity documents in a way that exposes another person's information.

Relevant conduct may also violate Fraud & Criminal Activity.

Do not publish another person's:

• bank account details;
• payment-card information;
• financial statements;
• transaction records;
• credit information; or
• comparable private financial information

without consent.

Legitimate journalism, court-ordered disclosure or lawfully public financial records may be treated differently.

Do not publish another person's private medical or health information without consent where publication creates a material privacy or safety risk.

People may share their own medical information.

Legitimate reporting on public-health matters, court proceedings or matters of genuine public interest may be permitted.

Do not publish another person's private communications without consent where publication creates a material privacy or safety risk.

Relevant material may include:

• private messages;
• emails;
• text messages;
• call recordings;
• private group discussions; or
• comparable communications.

Media.com may permit publication where there is legitimate public interest, evidence of wrongdoing, journalistic justification, legal proceedings or the person publishing is a participant with a lawful basis.

Do not publish, request or distribute another person's passwords, security credentials, authentication codes or comparable access information.

Relevant conduct may also violate Fraud & Criminal Activity or Account Integrity & Enforcement Evasion.

Do not publish another person's biometric information, including fingerprints, facial-recognition data or comparable identifiers, without consent.

Ordinary photographs of people are not automatically biometric information.

Do not publish another person's private employment or education records without consent where publication creates a material privacy or safety risk.

Reporting on professional conduct, corporate accountability or matters of public interest may be permitted.

Do not publish private information about a person's family, household or dependants for the purpose of intimidation, harassment or exposure.

Media.com may apply greater protection where children are involved.

Do not publish another person's immigration or residency status without consent where publication creates a material risk of harm, retaliation, harassment or exploitation.

Legitimate journalism, policy discussion and public-interest reporting may be permitted.

Do not publish information disclosing another person's sexual orientation, gender identity or transgender status without consent where doing so creates a material risk of harm, harassment or discrimination.

People may share their own information.

Relevant conduct may also violate Hate Speech & Hateful Conduct or Bullying & Harassment.

Media.com may apply heightened protection to information concerning minors.

Do not publish:

• a child's home address;
• school details combined with identifying information;
• daily routines;
• private images creating exploitation risk;
• contact information; or
• other information creating a material safety risk to a minor.

Youth Safety Rules may apply concurrently.

Not every photograph or recording of a person violates these Rules.

Media.com may act where an image or recording was taken or published in circumstances creating a material privacy intrusion, safety risk or exploitation risk.

Do not publish images or recordings of people in private settings without consent where publication creates a material privacy or safety risk.

Relevant settings may include:

• homes;
• bathrooms;
• changing rooms;
• medical facilities;
• private property; or
• other places where a person would reasonably expect privacy.

Images taken in public places are not automatically prohibited.

Media.com may still act where publication is used for harassment, stalking, sexualisation, doxxing or another prohibited purpose.

Intimate images shared without consent are governed principally by Media.com's Sexual Exploitation & Non-Consensual Intimate Content Rules.

Those Rules take precedence where they apply.

Do not use Media.com to conduct, coordinate or facilitate unlawful surveillance, stalking or tracking of another person.

This may include:

• publishing someone's live location;
• coordinating monitoring of a person;
• sharing tracking information;
• soliciting others to follow or observe someone; or
• distributing covert recordings.

Do not threaten to publish another person's private information in order to intimidate, coerce, extort or harass them.

Where sexual content or financial demands are involved, other Media.com Rules may apply.

Do not solicit others to obtain or publish another person's private information for a prohibited purpose.

Ordinary requests for public information, business contact details or professional information are not prohibited.

Media.com may restrict distribution of private information obtained through hacking, unauthorised access or comparable unlawful means, particularly where publication:

• creates a material safety risk;
• exposes highly sensitive personal information;
• facilitates harassment;
• facilitates fraud; or
• has no legitimate public-interest justification.

Legitimate journalism concerning matters of public interest may be permitted even where the underlying material was leaked, provided other Media.com Rules are followed.

Information does not automatically become permissible to publish merely because it appeared somewhere publicly.

Media.com may consider:

• how accessible the information genuinely is;
• whether it has become obscure;
• the sensitivity of the information;
• the purpose of republication;
• the audience and reach;
• accompanying commentary;
• whether users are being encouraged to act on it; and
• whether republication materially increases risk.

Public figures may be subject to greater scrutiny concerning their public roles, official conduct and professional activities.

Public status does not remove protection for:

• home addresses;
• children;
• medical information;
• private communications;
• identity documents;
• financial credentials; or
• other genuinely private information

where publication creates a material safety or privacy risk without legitimate public-interest justification.

Ordinary business or organizational information is not private personal information.

Publishing a company's registered address, official contact details or public corporate records is generally permitted.

Media.com may act where business information is used as a proxy for targeting an individual.

Media.com may permit publication of personal information where there is legitimate journalistic or public-interest justification.

Relevant considerations may include:

• public accountability;
• wrongdoing;
• public health or safety;
• court proceedings;
• corporate misconduct;
• political accountability;
• consumer protection; or
• other genuine public interest.

Media.com may consider whether the specific information published was reasonably necessary to the reporting.

You may share your own personal information.

Take care where doing so also reveals private information about other people.

Media.com may still apply safeguards where self-disclosure creates a safety risk, particularly for minors.

Consent should be meaningful.

Media.com may consider whether consent was:

• given for the specific publication;
• given freely;
• given by a person able to consent;
• later withdrawn where relevant; or
• assumed without a reasonable basis.

Consent to being photographed is not necessarily consent to publication.

A person whose private information has been published without consent may request removal through Media.com's reporting tools.

Media.com may request information reasonably necessary to verify the request while avoiding unnecessary collection of additional personal information.

Depending on the circumstances, Media.com may:

• remove the private information;
• remove the content;
• require redaction;
• restrict distribution;
• limit recommendation;
• restrict messaging;
• restrict monetization;
• issue an account warning;
• temporarily suspend an account; or
• permanently remove an account for serious or repeated violations.

Media.com does not need to apply these measures sequentially.

Doxxing, threats to expose information, publication of identity documents or exposure creating serious safety risks may result in immediate account-level action.

Users may report privacy violations through Media.com's Report function.

Where a person is reporting information about themselves, Media.com should handle the report sensitively.

A report does not itself establish that a violation occurred.

Users may appeal eligible enforcement decisions where they believe Media.com incorrectly applied these Rules.

For more information, see Appealing a Media.com Decision.

These Rules govern what users may publish about other people.

How Media.com itself collects, uses, stores and shares personal information is explained in Media.com's Privacy Policy and related privacy information in the Trust Center.

These Rules should be read together with:

• Bullying & Harassment;
• Sexual Exploitation & Non-Consensual Intimate Content;
• Youth Safety;
• Age Requirements & Age Assurance;
• Violence & Threats;
• Fraud & Criminal Activity;
• Impersonation & Identity Abuse;
• Verification;
• Human Exploitation & Trafficking;
• Civic & Election Integrity;
• Source Attribution & Provenance;
• Content & Conduct Standards; and
• other applicable Media.com Rules and Policies.