After billing, privacy is what people worry about most, and rightly so. Below: what a cam site actually knows about you, who can see it, and how to give away as little as possible.

What they collect

Once you’ve made an account and bought tokens, a typical site holds:

  • Account details. Email address, username, password (encrypted), date of birth.
  • Technical data. IP address, what device and browser you use, roughly where you are.
  • Activity. Rooms you’ve visited, tips, private shows, messages.
  • Purchases. Amounts, dates and the kind of payment method.

Your full card number normally stays with the payment processor. The site itself usually only keeps the last four digits and the expiry date.

In states that require age verification, you may also have to go through an identity or age check, usually run by a specialist company. See age verification by state.

Who sees what

WhoWhat they see
PerformersYour username, messages, tips and (if shown) your membership status. Never your name, email or card.
Other viewersYour username and public chat messages.
The platformEverything listed above, under its privacy policy.
Payment processorYour name, card and billing address, as with any online purchase.
Your bankThe billing descriptor and amount only.

Reading a privacy policy

You don’t have to read every word. Skim for five things:

  1. What they share with other companies, such as advertisers and analytics firms.
  2. How long they keep your data once you’ve closed your account.
  3. How to ask for it to be deleted.
  4. Where it’s stored: the US, the EU or somewhere else. Sites based in the EU fall under the GDPR, which gives you strong rights over your data.
  5. Who to contact about privacy requests.

Eight habits that protect you

  1. A separate email address, only for cam sites. Any free webmail service will do.
  2. A neutral username. Nothing from your name, birth year or hometown, and nothing you use elsewhere online.
  3. A password you don’t use anywhere else, ideally made up by a password manager.
  4. Two-factor authentication if the site has it.
  5. No social login. Skip the “Continue with Google” and “Continue with Facebook” buttons.
  6. Hide your activity where the site lets you. Some let you hide which rooms you’re in, or tip anonymously.
  7. Keep personal details out of the chat, however friendly things get.
  8. Close accounts you’ve stopped using instead of leaving them lying around.

And data breaches?

Any company can be hacked, and adult sites have been targeted before. What you can do is make a breach harmless. With a separate email, a one-off password and a username that doesn’t lead back to you, leaked data doesn’t identify you.

If an email ever turns up claiming to have your data and asking for money, read our section on sextortion emails. They’re nearly always bluffing.

Your own devices

What the site keeps is only half of it. The other half lives on your computer, tablet and phone: history, cookies, saved passwords, notifications. Keeping your browsing private takes you through it step by step.