Online Safety, Account Security, and Privacy

How PlayStation strives to keep you in control of your account details and personal information, and enables you to stay safe.

Our commitment to Online Safety, Account Security, and Privacy

However you choose to play, PlayStation will always strive to make gaming welcoming, secure, and inclusive for everyone.

PlayStation players come from a diverse range of backgrounds, with gamers of all ages, abilities, and interests playing together, so we’ve created easy-to-use tools to help you take control of who you interact with, how we use your personal information, and how it is displayed and shared.

You'll find information on some of our settings below, or you can visit our Help & Support hub for more detailed instructions on how to set them up.

Your profile

Flexible privacy settings to control how you appear online.

Explore profile settings

Chat & Messaging

Receive messages only from the people you want to hear from.

Communication settings

Sharing content

Share your content with the world or only the people you know.

Control your sharing

Reporting & moderating

Reporting inappropriate conduct in online games and action we can take.

What we can do

Pre-set privacy controls on PS5

If you’re playing on PS5, there are four pre-set privacy options that you can access and switch between quickly, depending on the level of privacy you want.

They range from ‘Social and Open’ for players who are happy to share their profile information and communicate with anyone, to ‘Solo and Focused’ where other players – including friends – will not be able to see your profile or send you messages.

You can also choose to adjust many of these settings individually to customise your controls.

Parental controls

If you’re the parent or guardian of young players and you manage their accounts, there’s a whole suite of tools that you can use to shape what they can see, play, or interact with based on what you determine is appropriate to their age.

You can set play time limits, disable chat and messaging, restrict age-rated games and media, set spending limits, and more, all from your console, PC, or smartphone, as well as PlayStation App.

Find out more

Account and console security

Keep your console and account information locked behind flexible layers of security.

Account and console security

Control who can sign in on your PS4 or PS5

Protect your account

PlayStation Store security

Take charge of your spending on our digital game store

Shop safely

Privacy

What personal information we collect from you, how we use and share it, and how you can tailor your privacy preferences.

Personal information is the information that identifies you, such as your name, email address, and your PlayStation Online ID. It also includes the information that we link to you, such as the games you play, the products you have, or the actions you take while on our devices and network.

When you engage with us through, for example, the account creation process, using the console or PlayStation App, or playing a game, we collect personal information. During the account creation process, for instance, we collect identifiers such as your name and email address.

When you use our services or play games on console or on PlayStation App, we collect additional information that we link to you such as age, trophies earned, progress within a game, or which players you play against.

We may also receive information from third parties. For example, when you link your account with a third party service like Apple Music on PS5, we may have access to your Apple Music media library, ratings, or listening activity.

For more details on the personal information we collect, check the “Information that We Collect or Receive” section in our Privacy Policy.

While much of the personal information we collect is necessary to deliver you our services, you can choose whether we collect more information. For example, on the PS5, you can choose whether we only collect the data that is necessary to deliver you our services (“Limited Data”) or whether we can collect more data for purposes such as improving your experience (“Full Data").

Learn more about how to update your privacy settings here or see “Where can I adjust my privacy settings” below.

We use your personal information to provide you with the games you play and to enable the features and functions of PlayStation, playstation.com, and our mobile apps.

In addition, we may use your information to understand, improve, and enhance our existing services, and to develop new ones. These enhancements may include improving user interfaces, game performance, or game design.

We may also use your personal information to protect you, other users, our rights and properties, or those of our partners. For example, we may use your information to enforce our terms of service or other applicable terms, to identify fraudulent activities and to prevent abuse, or for auditing, compliance, and legal purposes.

For more details about how we use your personal information, check the “Information Use” section of our Privacy Policy.

You have several options to control how we use your personal information.

For example, you can choose whether we can use your information to recommend you products and services that are tailored to your interests. If this is turned off, you may still see offers and recommendations, but they may be less relevant to your interests.

You can also decide whether we can use your information to show you personalized ads in our products and services, and on third-party apps and sites.

You can also decide whether your information can be used to send you video and music recommendations from our partner media services and apps. If you do not want to receive these recommendations, you can disable this setting, and you may still see recommendations from those partners and services, but they will be less relevant to your interests.

You have the option to disable these settings at any time.

Learn more about how to update your privacy settings here.

We may share your personal information with third parties, such as service providers:

  • to provide you with the services, games, or apps you requested; to process your payments; or to protect the security of your personal information or against fraud,

or partners such as:

  • game publishers to deliver you their games and when we jointly deliver advertising, sweepstakes, promotions, or contests;
  • security and fraud mitigation partners;
  • Sony Group, to support various business and security processes; or
  • business transfer partners in the context of mergers and acquisitions.

We will share your online ID with other users when you play a game with them.

In addition, we may share your information with police and other government authorities to protect any person, their property, or their rights.

For more details about how we use your personal information, check the “Information Sharing and Transfers” section of our Privacy Policy.

We give all users the ability to access and delete the personal information we have about them. Depending on your country, you may have additional rights.

Learn more about your rights, including how to exercise them, in ourPrivacy Policy.

You have several ways to control the sharing of your personal information, depending on the services you use.

For example, you can decide who can see the games you play or the trophies you earn. If you decide to share these activities, you still have the ability to hide specific games you play from other users. This would hide that specific game from users, as well as the trophies you have earned within that game.

On the PS4, you can also choose who can see the videos you watch, or who can see the last song you played on Spotify.

In addition, you can decide who can request to watch your game play via Share Play.

Learn more about how to update your privacy settings here.

There are several places that you can sign in using your account for PlayStation and adjust your privacy settings:

  • On PlayStation.com. Once you’ve signed in, go to Account Settings and choose Privacy Settings.
  • Via your PS4 or PS5 console’s Settings menu.
  • On the official PlayStation App. Tap your avatar then head to the ‘Privacy’ icon.