Social networking and privacy Part I

2 April 2010

Social networking and privacy Part I

By Paul Bicknell

The primary purpose of social networking services such a Facebook and MySpace is for users to socialise and stay in touch with a selected circle of friends. It naturally follows from this that in order to make sure that your friends recognise and add you as their friend you must divulged a certain amount of information.The question is why are people more willing to publish information about themselves (potentially to the world) as opposed to other situations?

The reason why users appear to have less concerns about their privacy by publishing their personal data through the medium of the social networking site is difficult to explain. But the main issue must be at what point and to what extent should the social networking provider be responsible both morally and legally for its users' information?

A stream of argument falling favorably on the service provider is that information is given up freely; this obviously puts the spot light on the user and the extent to which the user is aware that their information is available to third parties possibly including companies.

Whichever arguments are voiced, it remains the case that the service provider must be in compliance with the Data Protection Directive - the simple purpose of the Data Protection Directive is that information be processed fairly and lawfully.

Issuing a privacy policy and or terms of engagement before a user joins, and getting that user to actively read and agree to the same is a sound practical way in which to achieve compliance with the Directive.

Paul Bicknell is a trainee solicitor who specialises in intellectual property law with an emphasis on commercial and consumer litigation. Paul can be contacted via paul.bicknell@lawit.co.uk <mailto:paul.bicknell@lawit.co.uk>.