by Philip Lop

Created on: September 22, 2010   Last Updated: May 26, 2011

As soon as Facebook announces a new development, the debate over personal privacy is re-ignited. In fairness, this isn’t an issue restricted to Facebook. All social networking sites exist on the basis that millions of people are telling millions of other people where they are and who they’re with.  Facebook, however, has, by far, the worst reputation when it comes to protecting its users’ privacy. Facebook is gradually changing but the fact is that there are still a number of important reasons why users should continue to voice their concerns over privacy.

The spectrum of Facebook users varies enormously.

New users may not be so aware of the issue of privacy and/or individual settings and might consider it entirely appropriate to share their information with the world. While it’s reasonable to expect individuals to take accountability of their own actions, Facebook doesn’t even attempt to provide users with ‘things to consider’ before they change their user settings. Indeed, anything that might discourage wider availability of data goes against the core Facebook business model. Data is only valuable if it can be shared and used by others. Why discourage users from allowing this?

Facebook doesn’t have a particularly good track record when it comes to the issue of privacy.

Indeed, this is one of the first Facebook developments where the default setting is not ‘open to everyone’. While users might draw some comfort from the fact that they need not change the default setting, they might not be quite so happy if they remembered that Facebook has previously changed default settings without warning users. This puts a burden on users to regularly check their settings to ensure that their privacy remains at a level with which they’re comfortable.

The implications of sharing such data so openly could be serious.

When Facebook Places was first mooted in the UK, a number of national newspapers ran alarmist editorials over the potential for burglars to ransack countless homes using the information made available via Facebook Places. It was, without any doubt, a slightly hysterical response to what was a small risk but a real one, nonetheless. Despite a number of high profile stories involving criminal acts against Facebook users (including serious crimes like rape and even murder) there’s an inherent naivety about Facebook and personal security, particularly amongst teenagers. A number of parent groups feel that they are unable to monitor and protect the safety of children who use Facebook and the company arguably does little to help them.

The biggest risk with Facebook Places, however, will be that individuals will unwittingly or absent-mindedly expose their location in a compromising or embarrassing situation. Whilst users could customize the privacy settings on individual locations, the more that they are required to do this, the greater the opportunity for error and the greater the likelihood of problems. Indeed, if permitted by the user, your friends can ‘check you in’ at locations without you even knowing. History tells us that even the most innocent of practical jokes can easily backfire, often with serious consequences.

Facebook is keen to dismiss these concerns, commenting that users were already sharing these data and that all that Facebook Places does is provide them with a tool to do it more effectively. Whilst this may be true to an extent, the reality is that Facebook Places encourages much more active participation in this kind of data sharing without really asking users to consider the implications of their actions.

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