Skype takes appropriate organizational and technical measures to protect your information within our control with due observance of the applicable obligations and exceptions under the relevant law.
Although Skype is committed to ensuring your experience is as safe and secure as possible, no program is 100 percent secure and we cannot guarantee that our safeguards will prevent every unauthorized attempt to access, use or disclose personal information.
At Skype there are many controls in place to protect this information but it is equally important that you take the necessary measures to protect your personal data and payment information, such as your email address, password and credit card information, from malicious persons.
This section details how Skype handles your identity and information that you have entrusted us with, but also make sure you discover how to detect fake emails, websites and other such methods for online fraud on our Online Safety page - that is also of vital importance.
Privacy Policies
All management of your information is performed in accordance to our privacy policies detailed here.
Your Skype identity
Identity theft is big business in the criminal world. Your identity has a value and you must protect this to ensure that you don't become a victim. There are a number of controls in place that protect your information and identity when in use with Skype.
When you sign into your account on our site all the information is sent over SSL. SSL encrypts all the information before it leaves your computer and can only be decrypted by our server. This is the technology in place on, for example, your online banking site or when you make a payment on an e-commerce website. When you sign in via Skype itself your information is also encrypted and kept safe from malicious third parties.
Skype also uses a technology called digital certificates to provide further assurance that you are in conversation with whom you think you are. Everyone using Skype is issued this digital certificate and it forms part of the protection that is provided to ensure that your Skype account can only be used by you and help to ensure that third parties can't impersonate you. Remember, this identity is protected by your Skype Name and password.
Your Network and Skype
Skype is a peer-to-peer communications application, which means that it relies on computers being able to directly send information to one another over the internet. As such, Skype works best when users are able to communicate directly amongst themselves over the internet without blocks or interference.
Firewalls are set up to protect computers and networks from outside access, thereby thwarting attacks from potentially malicious third parties on the internet. The presence of firewalls on a user's network often prevents that user from being able to directly receive communications from other users, which can reduce the quality of a voice call.
However, Skype will work fine even if it is behind a firewall. This is because when Skype runs on a network behind a firewall, it connects "outward" toward the internet. Skype does not in any way modify or interfere with the use of firewalls on your network. Whilst allowing incoming connections to Skype could increase the quality of a Skype call, no special firewall rules or exceptions are needed.
