Policy paper

SIA social media policy

Updated 5 December 2025

1. Availability

Our social media accounts are managed by our Communications team. We monitor our social media accounts during office hours: 09:30am to 6:00pm, Monday to Friday.

2. Our content

If you follow us, you can expect to receive information on the following:

• news releases
• alerts about new content on our website
• invitations to provide feedback on specific issues on which we are consulting
• updates on our enforcement actions
• SIA licence application tips
• social media campaigns relevant to security operatives
• customer service messages
• occasional coverage of events
• items of interest to SIA licence holders and our stakeholders

3. Your posts, comments and messages

Any information you give to us in comments or messages belongs to you. We do not own the data that you post.

We will hide or delete any posts in which you give personal information about yourself (including your licence number or application number). This is so that we comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018.

We reserve the right to hide any posts that breach our moderation guidelines.

4. Replies and direct messages

We welcome feedback and ideas from our followers. We read all comments but will not necessarily always reply to every discussion. We do not provide customer support via any social media channel, including Facebook. If you are a licence holder and have an enquiry about your application, you can contact the customer support team via your online account. If you do not have an account, you can use the contact us form.

We cannot accept responsibility for the content of any comment on our social media channels, and we reserve the right to disable the comments section of a post or hide or delete a comment if it contains abusive, obscene, indecent, offensive or threatening language.

5. Reporting a crime or concern to us

If you report a crime or concern to us via social media, we pass your report to our Intelligence team. We will not be able to tell you what actions we then take, but if your report leads to a prosecution then it will appear on our website.

However, social media is not the best way to report crime or concern to us. This is particularly true when it is in connection with a serious or sensitive matter.

To report criminality in the industry or related concerns, please use our report a crime or concern form. This is so your report can be seen by the relevant team directly.

6. Reshares from our corporate channels

We may occasionally be asked to repost or reshare content from other social media users. We will consider such requests on a case-by-case basis but will generally honour those from other government departments or official agencies only. In the interests of commercial propriety and competitiveness we will not honour requests from profit-making organisations, as we would not be able to do so fairly.

7. X (formerly Twitter)

If you follow us on X (formerly Twitter), we will not automatically follow your profile back. Being followed by the SIA does not imply endorsement of any kind. We cannot be held responsible for the opinions or posts of those who follow us on X.

8. Facebook

If you wish to be kept informed of any updates to our Facebook page, then click on the ‘follow’ button. When you click ‘follow’, you are making a connection to our page. The page will be displayed in your Facebook profile, and in turn, your profile will be displayed on our page as a person who follows that page.

We monitor all comments but only reply to comments on case-by-case basis. Our messenger is open, and we can signpost you to guidance on our GOV.UK pages, but we cannot reply to enquiries related to your application via social media.

Being followed by the SIA on Facebook does not imply endorsement of any kind. We cannot be held responsible for the opinions of those who follow us on Facebook.

9. LinkedIn

We post regulatory and enforcement updates, licensing information, and job advertisements on our LinkedIn page. We also post thought-leadership articles and statements from our Chair, Chief Executive, Directors and other senior leaders on issues related to public safety and regulation.

Being followed by the SIA on LinkedIn does not imply endorsement of any kind. We cannot be held responsible for the opinions of those who follow us on LinkedIn.

10. YouTube

We use our YouTube channel to post guidance videos about licensing. We also post videos that can serve as a quick reminder of the content of your training and qualifications. Our videos are not a substitute for any training you are required to take as part of your licensing requirement. Where appropriate, we can use the channel to post videos from security industry events and/or corporate digital campaigns.

11. WordPress

The purpose of our blog on WordPress is to offer insight and commentary on some of our work and to act as a hub for some of our campaigns. We moderate comments under our blog posts and comments under our blogs fall under our moderation policy.

Our site uses cookies. You can read about what cookies we collect on the cookie declaration page on our WordPress site.

12. Moderation

The corporate social media channels are moderated by the Communications team at the SIA. The purpose of the dialogue on our social media is to enable as many people as possible to submit, rate, and comment on our stories or discussions. We want to keep discussion as open as possible and will not attempt to exclude or edit critical opinions. However, to protect these services from abuse, ideas and comments must satisfy some basic conditions.

You must not include:

• party political material – these are government social media pages, and we cannot publish party political content (this does not mean you cannot raise controversial issues)
• potentially libellous, false, or defamatory statements
• any commercial endorsement, promotion of any product, service, or publication
• language which is offensive, extreme, or provocative – this not only includes obvious swear words and insults, but any language to which people reading it could reasonably take offence

Please also ensure that your ideas and comments:

• are respectful of others – comments should not be malicious or offensive in nature and should not constitute a personal attack on a person’s character
• do not incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality, sexuality or other personal characteristics
• do not reveal personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details
• do not break the law – this includes libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaking copyright
• are reasonably concise and do not constitute spamming of the site
• are in English – unfortunately, we do not currently have the resource to moderate comments in other languages
• are relevant – please do not post messages unrelated to this channel or the subject under discussion