Facebook Privacy and the new safety centre fail to impress UK officials

Posted by: Krishna De | Posted on: April 14th, 2010 | 10 Comments | Posted in: Cyber Safety, Facebook, Social media, Social Media Ireland, Social networking

Earlier this week Facebook launched it’s updated safety information centre providing specific guidance for parents, teenagers, teachers, and law enforcement officers.

As reported by Cnet News Facebook vice president of Global Communications and Public Policy commented Elliot Schrage commented

There's no single answer to making the Internet or Facebook safer. That's why we're introducing new tools and advice for parents, educators and teens. We want our approach for improving safety to be as simple, easy and effective as our approach to improving Facebook's user experience.

As an example in the area for teenagers advice is given on:

• How to be safe of Facebook
• How to address or prevent cyber-bullying
• Advice on responding potentially hurtful content.

With Facebook’s strong international growth I was surprised to see that the Facebook Safety Centre is still written in a way that is very US centric.

Take for example the response to the question of what to do if ‘your current or ex boyfriend or girlfriend is controlling or monitoring what you do on Facebook’. The response on the Facebook Safety Centre goes on to say:

…please call the National Domestic Violence hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE to find out about resources in your community and get additional safety information.

Safety and privacy on Facebook is something that is of significant concern in many countries across the globe.

Take for example in Germany where the the Minister of Consumer Protection Ilse Aigner wrote an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and commented:

I was astonished to discover that, despite the concerns of users and severe criticism from consumer activists, Facebook would like to relax data protection regulations on the network even further. Private information must remain private. Unfortunately, Facebook does not respect this wish.

She then threatened to take down her own profile in protest.

In the UK there have been calls for Facebook to place a "panic button" on its pages and this has received the support of 44 police chiefs in England, Wales and Scotland – Police Chiefs signed a letter backing the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) centre, which wants the link on every page of the website. Ceop's director Jim Gamble commented that the Facebook Safety Centre is not sufficient action to protect children online.

Richard Allen, Facebook's head of policy in Europe in an interview on BBC radio commented that there is a link on every page already on Facebook and that Facebook is “one of the safest places on the Internet.”

In Europe, Viviane Reding, the EU’s information society commissioner, has warned social networking sites that she will not hesitate to intervene with legislation if they do not work harder to keep the profiles of minors private.

Clearly Facebook has it’s work cut out as any global organisation does to act globally but be responsible locally in each market it operates in.

In the meantime what can we do if we are using Facebook and are concerned about our privacy?

• Importantly determine what you will or will not share about your personal circumstances online.
• Then familiarise yourself with the support in the Facebook Safety Centre.
• Finally be sure that you amend your own privacy settings in Facebook.
• And of course if you are at all concerned that Facebook or any social networking site is leaving you vunerable, perhaps the decision for you is not to post content that you would be concerned about being found and used by a third party.

Perhaps you even want to take some time with the family this weekend to ensure that your children are also aware of how to stay safe on the social networks they are participating in.

What other suggestions do you have for how to stay safe online?