Wikipedia:Temporary accounts
 | This is an information page. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, but rather intends to describe some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting. |
 | This page in a nutshell: IP addresses are no longer exposed publicly for logged-out editors; instead, they are replaced by a temporary account which looks something like this: ~2026-35934-01. |
Temporary accounts are accounts which are automatically assigned to unregistered editors. Temporary accounts replace the practice of identifying unregistered editors by their IP addresses, which are no longer exposed publicly. The accounts have the effect of obscuring the connection of unregistered editors to their IPs to casual viewers. Users with some extended rights like administrators and CheckUsers, as well as users in the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user group, are able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range.
They were enabled on Simple English Wikipedia in September 2025.