Do we really understand the personal risks associated with cyberspace?

This past week saw a report by the federal Privacy Commissioner in which the ubiquitous social networking site Facebook, was cited for violating Canada’s privacy laws.  Although the criticisms are seen by some as excessive and even contradictory, they represent a bureaucratic attempt to protect the 12 million Canadians currently using the site. What is not disputed, is that concerns about Facebook are not new.

Since its creation by Harvard students in 2004, Facebook has been associated with controversy.  Its forerunner Facemash, was shut down by Harvard administration, alleging that confidential school files had been accessed illegally. Facebook has been banned in some countries (including China and Syria) and blocked in several workplaces and schools.  As well, litigation is ongoing, initiated by those who say they were involved at its outset and were not properly recognized for intellectual property development.

But online social networking poses other inherent risks.  A recent decision by a California appeals court involved alleged sexual assaults of 4 young girls aged 13 to 15, by men they had met through the girls’ profiles on MySpace.  The case questioned whether age-verification software should have been employed to render the girls’ accounts “private”, preventing other users from searching or browsing their profiles.  The court held that MySpace is not liable for content provided by a third-party user, as the site enjoys immunity under the federal Communications Decency Act.

All of which raises a series of questions involving personal information on the web, from the simple (how much “private” e-mail gets made public without the knowledge or permission of the sender?) to the more complex (what permissions have been given, even implicitly, once personal information is shared electronically in any format, and particularly when that information is loaded onto social networking sites?)

The only certainty is this: when we use the web for purposes of recording or transmitting personal or confidential material, we are likely exposed to more risk than any of us realizes.

Tags: cyberspace, internet, media, online, risk