Convergence Conversation

Data privacy: still no man’s land!

The last issue of the prestigious Technology Review, the MIT publication on the future of technology, is largely dedicated to social networking. As usual, I am devouring it during my journeys on the Tube. This morning, a story captured my attention. A technology blogger wanted to move their 5000 Facebook friends into his Microsoft Outlook address book. He asked some techie friends for some help. In the end, he managed to fulfil his task using an ad-hoc program.

Unfortunately, the program triggered alerts to Facebook, which disabled his account. “My identity disappeared. If I was your friend, I turned grey – all my information went grey” (Technology Review, July/August 2008). So, the next logical step was to ask the following question: “Who controls the data users post on their profiles?” Clearly, based on this experience, users do not have any active control over their profiles. Facebook and the other social networking sites govern all this data. They claim that this approach is necessary in order to safeguard information. Others claim that users should have more control on their data to allow them to do what they want to do with their data.

The story is another example of an on-going and unresolved debate about data privacy and security. At the recent Intellect Consumer Electronics Conference, Ed Richards, OFCOM CEO, reminded the audience that data piracy and data privacy are issues, which need to be faced because they can drastically affect consumers’ lives and the status of the ICT industry. Today, in front of the Italian Parliament, Francesco Pizzetti, CEO of the Italian Authority for Data Privacy, alerted the Italian MPs about “the enormous risks behind the impressive diffusion of YouTube and new social networks such as Facebook and MySpace ..” (La Repubblica, 16/07/2008).

Industry and public bodies seem to be fully aware of the threats to personal digital data coming from diverse technologies including social networks. However, finding a consensus on how to tackle the problem seems to be very difficult. During the most recent meeting on Thursday the 10^th of July, the European Parliament could not reach a consensus on the Electronic Data Protection Directive after a very long debate lasted several months. Data privacy remains a no-man’s land! We all have to accept Ed Richards’ invitation to an unprecedented effort by industry, regulators, and public bodies to find solutions for ensuring security and transparency of electronic data.