The European Parliament will increase the level of privacy in social networks
Are Facebook and MySpace Enough to Protect Their Users? In any case, soon in the EU they will need to do this better. A team of experts has developed a manual on the operation of social networks ( PDF ), which ensures that online privacy is strictly enforced.
The guideline is based on the 1995 Data Protection Directive of 1995 , which, among other legal acts, prohibits:
However, until recently, these standards did not always work as expected. For example, companies that preserve personal information must use it for legitimate purposes, which, of course, can be interpreted in different ways.
The proposed operating manual will require a lot of effort from sites such as Facebook and MySpace, which cannot abandon the European user base and, at least, try to bend to new standards - even Microsoft was not able to convince the European Parliament (remember the story with preinstalled IE).
According to the manual, social networks should:
Moreover, social networks must delete accounts that have not been active for a long period, as well as personal information of users after they deleted their accounts.
The last point is particularly interesting in view of the recent scandal related to Facebook. The administration of the service somehow said that it owns any information that ever came to their servers. After some time, Facebook apologized and changed the terms of service, giving us the opportunity to participate in decisions regarding the introduction of new ToS . However, one thing became clear - Facebook still reserves the last word in making ambiguous decisions.
Thus, it is good that a regulatory body will soon appear to monitor compliance with online privacy. The new EU leadership will make life of social networks much more difficult, but it will have a lasting positive effect on the privacy of user data.
The guideline is based on the 1995 Data Protection Directive of 1995 , which, among other legal acts, prohibits:
- Store personal information without permission of the consumer
- Read staff email
- Share personal information of users without their consent.
However, until recently, these standards did not always work as expected. For example, companies that preserve personal information must use it for legitimate purposes, which, of course, can be interpreted in different ways.
The proposed operating manual will require a lot of effort from sites such as Facebook and MySpace, which cannot abandon the European user base and, at least, try to bend to new standards - even Microsoft was not able to convince the European Parliament (remember the story with preinstalled IE).
According to the manual, social networks should:
- Set the degree of protection of user data to the highest level.
- Allow user to restrict data available to third parties
- Limit the use and access to sensitive information (race, religion, political views)
- Limit the use of behavioral data
Moreover, social networks must delete accounts that have not been active for a long period, as well as personal information of users after they deleted their accounts.
The last point is particularly interesting in view of the recent scandal related to Facebook. The administration of the service somehow said that it owns any information that ever came to their servers. After some time, Facebook apologized and changed the terms of service, giving us the opportunity to participate in decisions regarding the introduction of new ToS . However, one thing became clear - Facebook still reserves the last word in making ambiguous decisions.
Thus, it is good that a regulatory body will soon appear to monitor compliance with online privacy. The new EU leadership will make life of social networks much more difficult, but it will have a lasting positive effect on the privacy of user data.