A quick browse of my tag cloud reveals that I seem to care about privacy online.
Most of my griping is centered around Facebook. I don’t have anything against Facebook in particular, it’s simply a glaring example of where privacy (or lack thereof) and the internet collide.
But frankly, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Facebook failed to comply with Canadian privacy law.
Gee, look at (some of) the allegations in the complaint to the Privacy Commissioner:
- Not identifying what the private information collection is used for
- Not getting informed consent for the uses
- Not letting people use the services without supplying unnecessary information
- Not allowing withdrawal of consent to share information
- Not limiting the collection to what is necessary
- Not destroying information
- Not explaining policies
- Not safeguarding information
To some extent this is silliness, because the reason people use Facebook is to broadcast their personal information. Facebook isn’t about being private, it’s about being public.
To a greater extent this is not silliness, because the reason Facebook accepts users is to serve them targeted advertisements.
Facebook doesn’t care if people ruin their (often future) lives through indiscretion. Facebook doesn’t care if people get fired, offend their friends or become targets for spammers and fraudsters. There’s a large discrepancy between why Facebook exists and why people think Facebook exists.
People might benefit from a controlled way of publishing private information online to a limited audience. This is a very difficult thing (I might call it an outright contradiction), and a good solution probably doesn’t include giving access to all of the data to a single party.
Particularly not when the single party is a hotshot startup company which is desperately trying to come up with a viable way of making lots of money off its users.