Privacy and safety checklist

How people actually get identified

“Anonymous to fans” is not the same as “anonymous to the platform”, and neither one guarantees that somebody looking in five years cannot connect the content to you. Those are three different questions, and most advice on this only answers the first.

In the frame

• Your face, and increasingly your voice — both are matchable at scale now.
• Tattoos, scars, birthmarks. These identify people more reliably than faces do.
• The room. Windows, the view out of them, a doorway, a light switch plate, a radiator.
• Reflections — a mirror, a screen, a kettle, an eye.
• A uniform, a lanyard, a work bag, a local team's shirt.

Attached to the file

• Metadata in photos and video, including where and when it was taken.
• A filename that carries your real name because that is what your phone called it.

Attached to you

• A username you have used anywhere else, ever.
• A profile photo you have used anywhere else, even cropped.
• A shared email address, phone number, or account recovery detail.
• Who follows you, and who you follow. The social graph identifies people who never post.

Other people

• Collaborators, who can repost or leak without meaning to.
• Subscribers, who can screenshot and record whatever they can see.
• Sites that scrape and re-upload as a business model.
• Anyone who gets into your account.

Things that are not as protective as they sound

• Geo-blocking stops casual local viewing. It does not stop anyone determined, and it does nothing about a copy that already left.
• The platform knows who you are regardless — identity checks are required to get paid.
• Deleting your account stops future distribution by that platform, subject to its own rules. It does not reach copies.