"Wikimedia Foundation presents a LOW-TO-MODERATE privacy risk (34/100), comparable to Wikipedia/Mozilla baseline. While the organization does not engage in advertising, tracking, or data selling, it collects extensive sensitive data (demographics, location, medical/political information) automatically and retains public contributions indefinitely. Risk is mitigated by transparent practices, no third-party marketing, optional registration, and strong user control mechanisms including data export and deletion rights."
wikimedia Privacy Concerns & Scorecard
Indefinite retention of contribution history, page revisions, and public user data with no deletion mechanism for historical content.
Location data collected automatically through IP addresses and photo metadata with limited control mechanisms; default behavior exposes sensitive location information.
Wikimedia collects extensive sensitive data including location information via GPS and IP addresses, demographic data (gender, sexual orientation, racial/ethnic origins, medical conditions, political affiliation, religion), and metadata from user uploads.
Policy changes are binding upon continued use without affirmative consent; Do Not Track signals not honored.
Data shared with service providers, volunteer administrators, researchers, and third-party developers with limited oversight or specificity regarding safeguards.
No recommended actions at this time.
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Data Collection & Tracking
Personal Information Collected
Account creation, authentication, communication with user
Collected as optional survey data and through user-provided profile information
IP addresses logged for abuse detection; GPS/metadata collected from mobile app usage and file uploads
Analytics, service delivery, troubleshooting, abuse detection
Service improvement, analytics, understanding user behavior
Processing donations to Wikimedia Foundation
User-to-user communication and community interaction
Cross-Platform Tracking
Wikimedia does not engage in cross-platform behavioral tracking or retargeting. However, IP addresses and user-agent data are logged across all Wikimedia sites, and public contributions are permanently indexed by external search engines and can be redistributed across the internet.
Tracking Methods:
IP Address Logging
IP addresses automatically logged on every request and retained temporarily for security and abuse detection
Cookies and Local Storage
First-party cookies and localStorage used to maintain user sessions, store preferences, and track browsing behavior within Wikimedia sites only
Analytics Code (Tracking Pixels/JavaScript)
JavaScript and analytics code embedded in pages to track usage statistics, page views, and user interactions for service improvement
Device and Metadata Collection
User-agent strings, device identifiers, and file metadata automatically collected and stored
AI & Data Training
wikimedia does not train AI on your content
Based on their public policy, your content is not used to train AI models.
How to Object
No opt-out available
This service does not currently provide a public way to opt out of AI training.
Why We Analyzed wikimedia
TrueTerms automatically audits privacy policies and data practices using advanced machine learning to keep you informed and protected. This scorecard is based on the latest available public terms of service and privacy policies as of 2026.