New Policy Creates Privacy Issues

22 December 2009, filed under Intellectual Property

Facebook has put in place a controversial new privacy policy that has created a grim dilemma for users of the social networking site.

Facebook recently amended it’s default policy on privacy resulting in user’s having to alter their individual privacy settings. Over 300 million users of this social networking site will have to set their individual privacy preferences before continuing to use the site.

In a recent survey conducted by the National Fraud Information Centre a quarter of those asked stated that they had not used any online service for 6 consecutive months or more because they were concerned for the safety of their personal data and information. This survey also found that users of social networking sites are more concerned about privacy than any other contemporary internet related issue.

If users accept Facebook’s default privacy settings, they will make their personal details available to the whole internet. This includes details of their birthday, family, address, telephone number, relationships, friends, religious beliefs, and employer’s details.

Online privacy is a complex and often misinformed issue as many web companies argue that they require personal data to offer an improved service to consumers. It is very likely that the new settings will make user’s information far more accessible than the original default privacy settings and user’s will be unable to limit the information that is made publicly accessible.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have stated that these changes to the privacy settings will effectively reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data and privacy preferences.

The issue is that until now users could restrict other’s access to their personal data and information in a manner suited to that individual’s requirements whereas now that individual usability has been greatly diminished.