With Data Privacy Day celebrated last week it highlights the question, is there any privacy left in today’s world of information sharing?
A survey by the Information Commissioner’s Office found that 80% of people are concerned about their personal details online. That doesn’t come as a surprise looking at all the privacy issues arising almost daily, even just from the two most popular websites, Google and Facebook.
Google has a history of treading on thin ground when it comes to privacy. Street View managed to cause much controversy by capturing people in embarrassing situations. Some countries such as Greece banned Google from carrying out the service. The controversy became lawsuits when the Street View cars started tapping into people’s unsecured Wi-Fi networks and collecting their personal data. The court battles continue as last month Spain ordered Google to remove links to newspaper articles which breach individuals’ privacy.
The retention of search results is a growing concern. Search engines store information about who is searching what. They claim this is to provide users with a faster search service with more relevant results. The issue is how long they keep this information and who it’s share with.
Pretty much any query we have is solved by ‘Googling’, or using other search engines. The fact that they store and track all this information for long periods of time implies that all our secrets are laid bare. EU privacy laws have stated that search engines can only retain users’ data for 6 months. Microsoft’s Bing says they delete the entire IP address of searchers after 6 months, unlike Google who keep the information for 9 months and even then only delete parts of the IP address.
Firefox users were even encouraged to use the Bing add-on instead of Google by Mozilla’s director of community development, Asa Dotzler. This followed one of many worrying comments made by Eric Schmidt, Google’s ex-CEO. When the man in charge of a company with so much information about so many people says things like: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”, it questions whether we have any privacy at all. He has since been replaced by Larry Page, maybe because of his lack of seriousness when it came to such an important issue for users.
Facebook is another root of ever-increasing privacy issues. Millions of people are sharing personal details not only with their friends but often with the whole world. The initial issues weren’t so sinister; cases of bosses seeing employees’ rude posts about them leading to job losses. This is down to remembering exactly who you have added as a friend and who can see what you are posting. But even that is no longer as simple as it sounds. Facebook seems to change its layout and privacy settings every few months, making it increasingly difficult to keep track of who can see what and who has access to your information. It is possible to hide parts of your profile from certain people. But for most users it’s almost impossible to figure out how.
A more serious issue is who else Facebook is giving our information to. Users share everything about themselves, from their phone numbers to what they ate last night. Having this information available to all your friends may be problematic, but when Facebook starts selling this to third parties without our knowledge it becomes a major privacy concern. Facebook apps are still sharing users’ data with advertisers to personalise the adverts that appear on our pages, though they recently had to disable an API which shared users mobile phone number and address with app developers. This has led to congressmen asking questions about Facebook’s plans to disclose users’ data. They have requested a response by the end of the month.
To mark Data Privacy Day, and after founder Mark Zuckerberg’s own fan page was hacked, Facebook has introduced the option of using HTTPS secured pages on the site. Although this may help protect users against hackers, it doesn’t protect them from Facebook itself.
Google has also celebrated the day by releasing a Chrome extension that allows users to opt out of ad-tracking. This is good news for privacy but it may just be a response to the competition rather than Google wanting to ‘increase transparency’. Mozilla beat Google to the post by announcing a day earlier their Do Not Track feature for Firefox.
These features are still opt-out, so users must actually select the option to not be tracked online. It supports the argument that we must regulate our own privacy. If we want to control who sees what parts of our Facebook page, then we need to learn how to navigate the privacy settings. Although it could be simpler, it can be done.
We are given the option to hide certain information from certain friends or certain websites, but Facebook and Google are still always tracking us. Many argue that our data and privacy is the price we pay for using search engines and social networking sites. Mark Zuckerberg actually said that people care less about privacy, “People have gotten comfortable with not only sharing more information but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that’s evolved over time.” His comments assume that people are aware of what is being shared and accept it. That may not be the case with research by the ICO finding that 60% of people believe they have lost control of the way their information is collected and processed.
Privacy can only survive if tougher regulations protect it, and things are looking up. In America, the Obama administration is planning to establish a committee dedicated to implementing internet privacy laws. In Europe the inconsistent reactions to Google Street View has highlighted to the European Commission the need for uniform regulations and stricter rules regarding privacy. In the UK, following their research the ICO has relaunched their Personal Information Toolkit which includes tips on how to protect personal details online.
Lord McNally from the Ministry of Justice said, “Technology has come a long way since the 1990s, but with fresh opportunities come fresh risks for our personal information. The Government is working to look at the law and ensure it continues to protect our personal information well into the 21st century.” There may be hope for privacy yet, if users and regulators take more control. Whether it happens only time will tell.
