In Search Of The Ideal Privacy Icon — Smashing Magazine

I’ve been on the lookout for a privacy icon and thought I’d bring you along that journey. This project I’ve been working on calls for one, but, honestly, nothing really screams “this means privacy” to me. I did what many of us do when we need inspiration for icons and searched The Noun Project, and perhaps you’ll see exactly what I mean with a small sample of what I found.

Padlocks, keys, shields, and unsighted eyeballs. There’s a lot of ambiguity here, at best, and certainly no consensus on how to convey “privacy” visually. Any of these could mean several different things. For instance, the eyeball with a line through it is something I often see associated with visibility (or lack thereof), such as hiding and showing a password in an account login context.

So, that is the journey I am on. Let’s poke at some of the existing options of icons that exist for communicating privacy to see what works and what doesn’t. Maybe you’ll like one of the symbols we’ll stumble across. Or maybe you’re simply curious how I — or someone else —...