Online Privacy & Education

I do not post that I am going on holiday to any social networking site. Nor do I stand on my rooftop and shout it through a loud speaker there either. The second statement sounds obvious, but @EnglishFolkFan is quite right - people freely do this on the internet. This is far from ‘digital gumption’, more a lack of education.

The firms that have made the internet what it is today, allowing users to express themselves, do so in the knowledge that they will one day be able to earn from people’s disclosures through trending analysis and the like. Why educate to change behaviour when it will affect your bottom line? The privacy groups stance has typically been to lobby government and corporations, where the more effective solution may be to petition the user.

Social networking sites may feel much of this burden of responsibility as it is through their services that such information is relayed. However, with the controversy over Facebook’s agreements this is unlikely to happen soon. Besides…. any blogger can simply state all of this information wherever they are! Right? Wrong. Sort of.

This goes back to educating the user. If the user is educated, they won’t publish information. If they are educated, they may still publish the information if they feel ‘safe’ in the online environment where they are sharing. This may again be argued as a failure of education. For example, a Facebook event is posted online, assuming that only friends and associated people will see it, and then the Police turn up. They saw it on Facebook as did potentially many delinquents. Now there presents a problem - too much suspicion in these social services and they become unusable; too little and disaster may ensue. The trick in online privacy is attaining the correct balance of usability and privacy where you trust the provider.

Of course, if you have a virus on your computer, all of this may be useless advice.

Posted in response to BBC Digital Revolution Blog