To effectively serve voters, election officials must engage the community, which effectively requires a social media presence. This guide offers strategies for protecting personal data, delineating personal from professional online identities, and implementing digital security.
Personal Social Media Accounts Versus Professional Accounts#
Your personal social media accounts and your professional or official accounts serve different purposes, and your official accounts likely have distinct guidelines and expectations.
Create Clear Boundaries between your Personal and Work Accounts: Your personal accounts are your private spaces to share life updates, express your opinions, and connect with friends and family. In contrast, your official account or accounts as an election administrator are public platforms created to share information, updates, and communications relevant to the electoral process. You should carefully curate content to reflect the objectives and values of your official role, clearly separating personal opinions. This approach helps balance your private and public lives, ensuring your personal social media use does not affect the perceived integrity and impartiality crucial to your duties.
Avoid Accidentally Posting on the Wrong Account: Segment your personal and professional social media accounts and, when possible, use different devices for each. Avoid accessing personal social media accounts with government assets, including work computers and government-issued mobile devices. Unfortunately, it’s all too common to see public officials who have personal and work-related accounts post or like something, thinking they were using their personal account when they posted to their professional account. These types of mistakes can cause irreparable damage to both your individual reputation and the reputation of the election jurisdiction that you govern.
Be Vigilant on All Accounts: Malicious actors will often target the personal accounts of public officials, hoping you will be less vigilant there. Whether you are managing a work or personal account, you should always be suspicious of clicking links and attachments from unknown and untrusted sources.
While social media platforms allow for efficient communication and engagement with the public, they also expose officials to potential security vulnerabilities. Malicious actors exploiting your publicly shared personal information can lead to doxxing, identity theft, phishing (of you or by someone pretending to be you), and direct threats to you and your family’s safety.
While official accounts likely need to be public, keeping your personal accounts private and controlling who you allow to follow your accounts can significantly mitigate these risks, ensuring that sensitive information is shared only with a trusted circle. This will help you control who can view your posts and reduce your exposure to harassment, particularly during heated election periods. These methods can limit unwelcome interactions and messages from potentially malicious individuals. For those facing directed and/or extreme harassment, consider temporarily pausing or deactivating personal social media profiles as a measure to reduce unwanted interaction and information leakage.
Regularly review and remove followers on your personal social media accounts, particularly if your role involves increased risks to personal safety. Limit followers to those in your immediate circle to keep personal information private. As your network grows, managing information security becomes more complex. By restricting your circle to trusted contacts, you significantly lower the chance of personal information being misused. This focused strategy enhances both your privacy and your information security, serving as a wise measure to protect your digital presence.
Accessing the privacy settings on various social media platforms is crucial for managing what information is visible to others and for controlling your online experience. The exact steps may vary slightly depending on whether you are using a web browser or a mobile app, and the platforms themselves may update their interfaces and options over time.
Control Who Can Tag or Mention You on Social Media Platforms#
Controlling who can tag or mention you on social media platforms is essential for maintaining online privacy and managing your digital footprint. It gives you control over the content associated with your profile and helps prevent unwanted attention or harassment.
Turn off location services for social media apps to prevent your location from being shared when you don’t want it to be.
Apple iPhones:
Go to the Settings app.
Tap on Privacy.
Tap on Location Services.
To turn off location services for all apps, toggle ‘off” next to “Location Services”.
To turn off location services for specific apps, scroll down and select the app, then choose “Never” or “While Using” instead of “Always.”
Android Phones:
Open the Settings app.
Tap on Location.
To turn off location services for all apps, toggle ‘off” next to “Use Location” or “Location Services.”
To turn off location services for specific apps, scroll down and select the app, then choose “Deny” or “Allow only while using the app” instead of “Allow all the time.”
Including location information in photos and posts can reveal more about you than you intend. You can manually add a location to a post if you want, but it’s important to not allow this by default and to be judicious about including locations.
Remove location tags:
Facebook: As of 2011, Facebook strips geotag information from photos.
X: The option to tag your location in Tweets on mobile is off by default, but you have the option to turn it on.
Instagram: You can set defaults as well as edit locations on existing posts.
TikTok: You can change this setting going forward, but as of June 2024, TikTok does not currently provide a feature to edit the geolocation tag after a video has been posted.
Malicious actors can also target family members for cyber-attacks and social engineering. This becomes crucial when an election official’s information is not publicly available, but family members post similar information, including addresses, locations, and times when they are not at home, such as during vacations.
They should adhere to the guidelines in this document, which include deleting old or unused social media accounts, limiting personal information shared, effectively using privacy settings, and exercising caution when accepting friend requests.
In addition, election officials should sit down with their family members to discuss the importance of privacy and the potential risks associated with a public digital footprint. Use the guidelines outlined in this document and the collective responsibility of enhancing their digital security and privacy.
Social Media Privacy#
To effectively serve voters, election officials must engage the community, which effectively requires a social media presence. This guide offers strategies for protecting personal data, delineating personal from professional online identities, and implementing digital security.
Personal Social Media Accounts Versus Professional Accounts#
Your personal social media accounts and your professional or official accounts serve different purposes, and your official accounts likely have distinct guidelines and expectations.
Create Clear Boundaries between your Personal and Work Accounts: Your personal accounts are your private spaces to share life updates, express your opinions, and connect with friends and family. In contrast, your official account or accounts as an election administrator are public platforms created to share information, updates, and communications relevant to the electoral process. You should carefully curate content to reflect the objectives and values of your official role, clearly separating personal opinions. This approach helps balance your private and public lives, ensuring your personal social media use does not affect the perceived integrity and impartiality crucial to your duties.
Avoid Accidentally Posting on the Wrong Account: Segment your personal and professional social media accounts and, when possible, use different devices for each. Avoid accessing personal social media accounts with government assets, including work computers and government-issued mobile devices. Unfortunately, it’s all too common to see public officials who have personal and work-related accounts post or like something, thinking they were using their personal account when they posted to their professional account. These types of mistakes can cause irreparable damage to both your individual reputation and the reputation of the election jurisdiction that you govern.
Be Vigilant on All Accounts: Malicious actors will often target the personal accounts of public officials, hoping you will be less vigilant there. Whether you are managing a work or personal account, you should always be suspicious of clicking links and attachments from unknown and untrusted sources.
Lower Risks by Using Private Accounts#
While social media platforms allow for efficient communication and engagement with the public, they also expose officials to potential security vulnerabilities. Malicious actors exploiting your publicly shared personal information can lead to doxxing, identity theft, phishing (of you or by someone pretending to be you), and direct threats to you and your family’s safety.
While official accounts likely need to be public, keeping your personal accounts private and controlling who you allow to follow your accounts can significantly mitigate these risks, ensuring that sensitive information is shared only with a trusted circle. This will help you control who can view your posts and reduce your exposure to harassment, particularly during heated election periods. These methods can limit unwelcome interactions and messages from potentially malicious individuals. For those facing directed and/or extreme harassment, consider temporarily pausing or deactivating personal social media profiles as a measure to reduce unwanted interaction and information leakage.
Review and Remove Followers on Personal Accounts#
Regularly review and remove followers on your personal social media accounts, particularly if your role involves increased risks to personal safety. Limit followers to those in your immediate circle to keep personal information private. As your network grows, managing information security becomes more complex. By restricting your circle to trusted contacts, you significantly lower the chance of personal information being misused. This focused strategy enhances both your privacy and your information security, serving as a wise measure to protect your digital presence.
Privacy Settings on Social Media Platforms#
Accessing the privacy settings on various social media platforms is crucial for managing what information is visible to others and for controlling your online experience. The exact steps may vary slightly depending on whether you are using a web browser or a mobile app, and the platforms themselves may update their interfaces and options over time.
Adjust your privacy settings: Facebook | X | Instagram | LinkedIn | TikTok
Control Who Can Tag or Mention You on Social Media Platforms#
Controlling who can tag or mention you on social media platforms is essential for maintaining online privacy and managing your digital footprint. It gives you control over the content associated with your profile and helps prevent unwanted attention or harassment.
Manage who can tag you: Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok
Disable Location Services#
Turn off location services for social media apps to prevent your location from being shared when you don’t want it to be.
Apple iPhones:
Go to the Settings app.
Tap on Privacy.
Tap on Location Services.
To turn off location services for all apps, toggle ‘off” next to “Location Services”.
To turn off location services for specific apps, scroll down and select the app, then choose “Never” or “While Using” instead of “Always.”
Android Phones:
Open the Settings app.
Tap on Location.
To turn off location services for all apps, toggle ‘off” next to “Use Location” or “Location Services.”
To turn off location services for specific apps, scroll down and select the app, then choose “Deny” or “Allow only while using the app” instead of “Allow all the time.”
Remove Location Tags from Photos and Posts#
Including location information in photos and posts can reveal more about you than you intend. You can manually add a location to a post if you want, but it’s important to not allow this by default and to be judicious about including locations.
Remove location tags:
Facebook: As of 2011, Facebook strips geotag information from photos.
X: The option to tag your location in Tweets on mobile is off by default, but you have the option to turn it on.
Instagram: You can set defaults as well as edit locations on existing posts.
TikTok: You can change this setting going forward, but as of June 2024, TikTok does not currently provide a feature to edit the geolocation tag after a video has been posted.
Family Members#
Malicious actors can also target family members for cyber-attacks and social engineering. This becomes crucial when an election official’s information is not publicly available, but family members post similar information, including addresses, locations, and times when they are not at home, such as during vacations.
They should adhere to the guidelines in this document, which include deleting old or unused social media accounts, limiting personal information shared, effectively using privacy settings, and exercising caution when accepting friend requests.
In addition, election officials should sit down with their family members to discuss the importance of privacy and the potential risks associated with a public digital footprint. Use the guidelines outlined in this document and the collective responsibility of enhancing their digital security and privacy.