ℹ️ This can only be done by an Admin with the required permissions
To adjust privacy settings:
Go to your Admin settings (click your profile photo at the bottom left corner).
Click School → School settings.
Scroll down to Privacy settings, where you can customise visibility and safeguarding controls. You can customise:
Profile visibility:
Think of these as visibility ceilings, where students can make their profiles less visible than your chosen ceiling, but cannot exceed it - until they take control of their own profile (see re ‘Student Control’). If a student has selected a visibility option which exceeds your chosen ceiling, your ceiling will override this until they take control of their profile.
Most schools choose 'Advisors only' as their default visibility ceiling. The options are:
Private (only each student)
Advisors only (specific teachers assigned to the student by an Admin)
All Teachers
School only (anyone with a verified official email address from your school)
Public ( anyone with the link)
If you want to show your students how to share their profile with others, direct them our “How to share my profile” article.
Action visibility:
Think of these as visibility ceilings, where students can make their profiles less visible than your chosen ceiling, but cannot exceed it - until they take control of their own profile (see re ‘Student Control’). If a student has selected a visibility option which exceeds your chosen ceiling, your ceiling will override this until they take control of their profile.
Most schools choose 'Advisors only' as their default visibility ceiling. The options are:
Private (only each student)
Advisors only (specific teachers assigned to the student by an Admin)
All Teachers
School only (anyone with a verified official email address from your school)
Public ( anyone with the link)
If you want to show your students how to add an action in their profile direct them to our “How to add an action” article.
Why would our school choose different visibility settings for Profiles vs Actions?
Citizens lets you control visibility separately for Profiles and Actions to support secure sharing via a secret link.
For example, if students are completing work experience outside school, they might want their supervisors to view specific Actions describing their experiences. In this case, you can allow students to make individual Actions public while keeping their overall Profiles visible only to Advisors. This ensures that external contacts see only the intended Actions, not the full student Profiles.
Student visibility options:
This setting gives you the ability to restrict which visibility options students can see and choose based on the limits set for action and profile visibility.
The options are:
Hide unavailable options
Show unavailable options
If ‘unavailable’ options are shown, this means a student can select a higher level of visibility than their school’s limits, but that these will not take effect until this student can assume control of their privacy settings (see below setting in ‘Student Control’). For example, if the school sets visibility to ‘Advisors only’ and students only gain control of their privacy settings upon graduation, any selection of ‘Public’ will remain at ‘Advisors only’ until graduation - at which point it will automatically become public.
If ‘unavailable’ options are hidden, this means a student cannot see or select a higher level of visibility than their school’s limits.
Why would our school want students to select visibility settings that only take effect once they have control of their Profile?
A common example is university applications. Your school might use Citizens from early secondary, with students gradually building their Profiles over several years. When they reach the stage of applying to university, it’s helpful if their chosen visibility settings automatically take effect - for instance, making relevant Actions in their portfolio public - so they don’t need to update everything manually at that point.
Student control:
This sets the point at which students are able to choose any visibility options for their profiles and actions, regardless of your chosen visibility ceilings. Most schools choose 'once they turn 16' by default. The options are:
Students can choose at any time
Once they turn 16
Once they turn 18
After graduation
