So a few days ago, feeling a bit peeved off and frustrated, I joined this forum to let off some steam and ask for advice from others about their experience. I created a forum ID that would be pretty anonymous, unless you knew me as a 16 year old kid, and went through the steps of filling in the form with my real name and email address thinking these would be seperated and used for verification purposes only.
A day later and I have a new follower on Twitter, PhD forum. They must have taken the data I provided and searched through other social media sites for me, probably garnering other data points as they went along.
So, what are others opinions on this? Is it okay for them to use my personal information to link up on other social media platforms? Do we just have to expect that we have one online identity connected throughout web?

If they have used your email address to identify your twitter account, that seems an inappropriate cross-platform use of your data. Even if it's written into the T&Cs as permissible, it has an 'ick' factor, much in the same way that Facebook follows your browsing habits around the web even when you're ostensibly logged off.

Is there any alternative explanation e.g. had you tweeted something with, say a #PhDchat hashtag, or something else that they may have coincidentally picked up on?

Can the moderators clarify how the forum uses our personal data?

Not acceptable.

Considering I haven't tweeted anything in over month and only a handful of times ever, I can't see this being an organic process of connection on a single platform (i.e twitter).

Yeah that does sound dodgy then. Oh dear. :(