Facebook not so private.

A recent article on ABC News (2010) reports that Facebook has admitted to breaching its privacy policy after an investigation by Wall Street Journal was carried out. Vascellaro (2010) from Wall Street journal states that many of Facebook’s popular application has been transmitting information about the users to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies. She adds that there has been an increase in the number of companies that build detailed databases online and that it is unclear how long the breach has been going on.

In July of this year, Ron Bowes a researcher from Skull Security gathered the personal details of almost a third of all users of Facebook and compiled it in a file which was uploaded to The Pirate Bay where it recorded over ten thousand downloads. (Oswald 2010) Bowes stated that no hacking was needed as all the information was readily available. The lesson here is that if Bowes could do it, so could thousands of others with malicious intentions.

Joy of Tech. Click on image for source.

According to Zheng (2010), personal information has evolved into a valuable commodity for businesses. They use these to learn more about their targeted audience and market the right products to the right individual. While there has long been laws overseas that protect people’s private information like the Data Protection Directive 1995 in the Europe that mandates the use of personal data collected to be restricted to the minimum amount necessary to provide a service. (Duncan 2010) In Malaysia, a law was only established in April this year.

The Star (2010) reports that the Parliament passed the Personal Data Protection Bill 2009 that protected sensitive personal data such as a person’s health information, physical attributes, mental status and religion. According to Zheng (2010), private database collection agencies and credit reference agencies will have to comply with the Act and be monitored. If convicted under the Act, a person found to abuse this personal data faces imprisonment up to two years or a fine up to RM200,000.

Even with this law in place, we still have to play our part in protecting our own personal information. It can be done with the click of a mouse, just go to your Facebook privacy settings and set your information to private and tell your friends to do the same.

References:

ABC News, “Facebook admits privacy breach,” published 19^th October 2010, accessed 13^th November 2010, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/19/3042594.htm

Duncan, G 2010, “EU outlining personal data protection rules,” Digital Trends, published 4^th November 2010, accessed 13^th November 2010, http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/eu-outlining-personal-data-protection-rules/

Oswald, E 2010, “Personal data of 170 million Facebook users exposed, collected and shared without any hacking,” Beta News, published 29^th July 2010, accessed 13^th November 2010, http://www.betanews.com/article/Personal-data-of-170-million-Facebook-users-exposed-collected-and-shared-without-any-hacking/1280439164

Vascellaro, J E 2010, “Facebook Grapples with Privacy Issues,” Wall Street Journal, published 19^th May 2010, accessed 13^th November 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704912004575252723109845974.html

Zheng, J 2010, “Malaysia: The Personal Data Protection Bill 2009,” Eternity in an Hour, published 12^th April 2010, accessed 13^th November 2010, http://jamesesz.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/malaysia-the-personal-data-protection-bill-2009/