Publishing another person's private information without their permission is not permitted here. What that means is their documents, their account numbers, their address, their phone number, their medical records: the things that let a stranger find them, impersonate them, or take something from them. Threatening to publish those, or asking other people to, is not permitted either. Neither is posting private images or video of a person who has not agreed to it.
Writing to your family about what is happening in your family is not that, and it is allowed. So is writing about your own life. The section below says both plainly, because a rule about medical records, read literally, can look like a rule against telling your children what your mother died of, or against telling them what is happening to you. It is not one.
We do not screen anything before it is posted, so a report is how this reaches us, one person runs Goodbye App and reads every report, and we review reports within 24 hours of receiving them.
What Constitutes a Violation of This Policy?
Publishing any of the following about another person, without their permission, violates this policy:
Identity documents, including government-issued IDs and national identity numbers.
Home address or physical location details, including street addresses, GPS coordinates, or any identifying information related to private locations.
Live location data, such as travel routes or real-time physical location information, whether shared directly on the platform or through third-party URLs.
Media portraying prisoners of war, specifically those posted by government or state-affiliated media accounts on or after April 5, 2022.
Personal contact information, such as private phone numbers or email addresses.
Financial account details, including bank account and credit card information.
Other sensitive private information like biometric data, medical records, or media depicting individuals without their consent.
Additionally, the following behaviors are strictly prohibited:
Sharing information that could facilitate unauthorized access or hacking into someone's private data, such as sharing login credentials for online banking.
Threatening to expose someone's private information publicly.
Offering or requesting a bounty or financial reward in exchange for posting or refraining from posting someone's private information, which is commonly known as blackmail.
What Does Not Constitute a Violation of This Policy?
Your own information is yours to give away. Your diagnosis, your test results, your treatment, your address, your phone number, your finances: you may put any of it in what you write here, and nobody will ask you why.
Writing to your family about an illness in the family is not a violation of this policy. You may say what your mother died of. You may tell your children what is wrong with you, what the doctors have said, and what is likely to happen. You may write to a brother about a sister's diagnosis, and to your children about their grandfather's. What this policy forbids is putting another person's records and account details where strangers can read them and use them. A letter to the people in someone's life about what is happening to them is not that, and it has never been.
Naming the person who died, saying when and how, and posting the photographs you have of them, is also not a violation of this policy. An obituary is not a privacy breach.
The following are not violations of this policy either:
Individuals sharing their own private information voluntarily.
Sharing location information about a place that is already public, such as a business address, or about where you yourself are.
Sharing information the person it is about has published about themselves and left public. A stranger being able to find something somewhere is not this, and a home address, a phone number or an account number stays private however it was come by. What a person reading a report has to be able to see is where the person published it themselves. Live location data is outside this in every case.
Sharing information deemed non-private, such as:
Name
Birthdate or age
Physical appearance descriptions
Educational or employment details
Gossip, rumors, accusations, or allegations
Location data related to commercial properties or public businesses
Screenshots of text messages or messages from other platforms that do not contain private information like phone numbers.
Regarding media, the following are not in violation of this policy:
Media of yourself, and of your own life, including your own illness and your own treatment.
Media of a person who has agreed to your posting it.
Media of someone who has died, posted by the people who are mourning them.
Media the person it is about has already published themselves.
Media of a public figure acting publicly in their public role.
There is no public interest exception here, and there is none in our Community Guidelines either. Newsworthiness is a reason for posting something, and reading a report we can see the picture and the words but not the reason, so a rule that turned on it is one we could not apply evenly. Every test above is one a person reading a report can apply for themselves.
Who can report violations of this policy?
Any user with a Goodbye App account has the ability to report potential violations of this policy.
In-app and Desktop
You can report content for review in-app and desktop as follows:
Select Report Account from the icon:
Select "Bullying or harassment", or "Scam or fraud", whichever is closer. There is no reason on that list named for private information, so say in your own words what was posted and about whom.
Submit your report.
Consequences of Policy Violations:
When you violate this policy, the penalty depends on various factors, including the severity of the violation and your past record of rule infractions.
For sharing private or live location information:
First Violation: You will receive a warning and be required to remove the private information. Your account will be temporarily locked until you comply.
Subsequent Violations: If you share private information again after the initial warning, your account is permanently suspended. So is an account most of whose posts are other people's live location. That decision is made by a person reading the account, not by an automated system.
For sharing private media without consent:
First Violation: You will receive a warning and be required to remove the private media. Your account will be temporarily locked until you comply.
Subsequent Violations: If you post private media of somebody again after the initial warning, your account is permanently suspended. That decision is made by a person reading the account, not by an automated system.