Does Slack track your activity and location?
4 min read
Slack is a hub for work-related communication that is used by many companies worldwide. However, as with many other online platforms, it tracks some of your online activity and can pinpoint your approximate location when you use the platform. Discover what Slack logs and how to gain more privacy when using its services.
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Does Slack track your activity?
Yes – as with many other services provided over the internet, Slack collects information about your activity online. Slack indicates that the main reason it logs your activity is to improve your user experience. For instance, as many other online platforms it uses internet cookies. By doing that, Slack ensures you remain logged in while roaming the application and takes into consideration your language and settings preferences. On the other hand, cookies can also be used to track user behavior, which in some cases leads to profiling rather than improved services.
Knowing what information you agree to share when you start using any online platform is crucial, and Slack is no exception.
Does Slack track your location?
Yes, Slack does track data that allows the platform to estimate your location. Slack usually knows a business address provided by your employer and captures your IP address from your browser. Moreover, a workspace owner can track team members’ access logs which contain their IP addresses.
Slack claims that logging users’ location allows for smoother localization processes and better user experience. However, if information about your whereabouts was ever breached, hackers could use your IP address to launch malicious attacks or cause device disruptions.
What else does Slack log?
Cookies and location are not the only information that Slack tracks. The platform logs a much wider range of information about you, your online routines, and the devices you use. Though gathering this information may help Slack better tailor its services to your and your company’s needs, remember that oversharing of your personal data may also become a security hazard.
Explained below are more types of information Slack collects about you.
Account and customer data
To create your Slack account or a specific workspace, you need to provide your email address and phone number, create passwords, and set up other account details, all of which are logged. Slack also saves any contact information you choose to import, such as an address book or a calendar, and the billing details of users with a paid version of the platform.
Among the logged information, Slack stores data that you routinely submit while using the platform. It typically includes messages, files, and other content you upload to Slack.
Service metadata
Whenever you use Slack, it tracks the metadata that reveals how you use the platform and your activity there. For instance, Slack logs information about workspaces, channels, people, features, and content, including various links and files you interact with and third-party services you use.
Slack also captures and stores metadata that derives from video and audio features of the platform, namely – Slack Huddles and Clips.
Log data
Besides logging your IP address, Slack may also receive information about the websites you visit before opening Slack as well as your browser type and its settings, configurations, and plugins. The platform also tracks the date and time you use it and your language preferences.
Device information
Slack tracks information about what device you use when you connect to it. It captures what operating system your device runs on, your settings, and the device’s application IDs, unique identifiers, and crash data. How much of this information is collected depends on the device and its settings.
Third-party service information
Most third-party services (such as cloud storage applications) you want to use in Slack need to share some of your personal information with the platform to facilitate the integration. For example, it may be your username or email address tied to the cloud account that needs to be disclosed to Slack. You should always check the privacy settings of the third-party service provider to see what data they will share with Slack upon integration.
If you’d like to get to know more about how Slack collects your data, you can find more information on its privacy policy page.
How to stop Slack from tracking you?
Though you cannot completely prevent Slack from tracking your activity online, you can hide your IP address so the platform cannot trace your virtual location. One of the easiest ways to do that is using a virtual private network (VPN).
When you connect to a VPN, your online traffic is routed through a remote server, which can be located anywhere in the world. This way, your real IP address is replaced with that of the remote server and remains unknown to Slack and other third parties online. A VPN also encrypts data in transit between your device and the server, hiding it from prying eyes.
