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Twitter ups personal security

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
Johannesburg, 17 Jul 2015
Twitter makes it easier for users to revoke access to third-party apps.
Twitter makes it easier for users to revoke access to third-party apps.

Twitter has made it easier for users to revoke access from third-party apps, and monitor from which devices and where in the world their account is being accessed.

"To put you in control of your information, we've made a series of deliberate design decisions that help protect your privacy and security," says Mollie Vandor, Twitter safety and security product manager, in a blog post.

"Now, your Twitter data dashboard shows your account activation details, the devices that have accessed your account and your recent login history. With this information, you can quickly review your account activity and verify that everything looks the way it should."

If logins from suspicious locations are noticed, users can easily change their password from the dashboard. Similarly, users can revoke access from third-party apps if they notice unfamiliar activity from these apps on their timelines.

A third-party application is a product developed apart from Twitter.com or Twitter's official mobile apps, and is used to access tweets and other Twitter data.

A recent study by Twitter and Nielsen shows only 40% of South African Twitter users actually tweet daily; 52% say they read tweets in their timeline daily, and 37% say they look at the trending topics daily. This means there are more people watching their timelines and observing Twitter conversations than actively using the platform.

Third-party apps could harvest data from users even if they are not actively using the site daily. The new dashboard allows users to remove third-party apps simply.

Vandor says other security features already in place include Do Not Track, HTTPS by default, StartTLS and forward secrecy.

The site also does not require users to use their real name, users have the option to keep tweets private, and login verification can be enabled.

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