Facebook and privacy… again
If you’re a Facebook user, you may have come across this recently, usually forwarded as a Wall post:
Facebook has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures without your permission. Click on “Settings” up at the top where you see the “Log Out” link. Select “Privacy Settings”. Then select “News Feed And Wall”. Next select the tab that reads “Facebook Ads”. There is a drop down box, select “No One”. Then save your changes.
I don’t know if Facebook have really ‘agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures’ but it wouldn’t surprise me; after all, Facebook don’t have a good record in this area.
And it’s this lack of a good track record that makes me wonder why people are surprised. As I commented today on a friend’s Facebook page, all Facebook want to do is run a successful, profitable business. They don’t care about your privacy.
But, as users, we also have to take responsibility for our own privacy. If we don’t care about it, then no one else will. Do we really need to put all that information on Facebook? Could we scale it down a bit? Perhaps not put our whole life on there?
After all, this is the Internet. It’s a public information exchange; no part of the internet is private, no matter how it appears. If you don’t want lots of people using your pictures, or knowing your personal information, then don’t put it online. Simple as that. If you do put it online, be aware that it is not secure. The internet is not a gated community; there are no borders to protect you – you have to protect yourself.
Update: Facebook have written a post, addressing this issue of third-party use of pictures and stating that this does not happen and that they do care about your privacy after all. So, it seems like this particular issue is just a false rumour, but my advice still stands; it’s the internet – it’s not private, so protect yourself.
How much is 25m names, addresses and bank details worth?
Not much if you’re HMG, it would seem. Skimmer has a post on the subject of the Latest Great Data Loss ™ at OnceAroundTheBlog which I think encapsulates the position that a hefty percentage of all people in the UK are now in.
But we musn’t worry; everything’s OK. Gordon’s apologised, the head of HMRC has resigned and the junior clerk responsible for actually putting the CDs in the envelope has been given the push. So everything’s good again.
Oh, except for the fact that there’s two CDs out there SOMEwhere just waiting to be exploited by anyone with the desire to do so, and the fact that the ‘error’ has only arisen because of policy decisions taken higher up in HMRC, which decreed that they would send the National Audit Office ALL of the data they held, rather than just the names and NI numbers they’d actually asked for; apparently, ‘dis-aggragating’ the data “wasn’t cost-effective”.
This is the same Government that wants to introduce a national ID card scheme, who have promised us that our fingerprint and other biometric data is perfectly safe and not open to mis-use, abuse or loss. Yeah, right.
Meanwhile, someone somewhere has got a massive mailing list to sell. Even at 10p per name, they’re onto a winner.
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