Right to Privacy on Facebook Privacy on

Right to Privacy on Facebook Privacy on Facebook: A Background A Chronology of Privacy Breaches Dissenting Views The Need to Protect the Privacy of Members and the Way Forward Today, millions of people continue to join dozens of social networking services including but not limited to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. However, these services have been accused of neglecting the privacy of their members either for economic gain or otherwise.

In this text, I concern myself with the right to privacy as well as the need for the same and how the social networking services are handling the privacy issue. In so doing, I will limit myself to Facebook. Privacy on Facebook: A Background Facebook according to Tavani "is a popular social networking service (SNS) founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, when he was a student at Harvard University" (155).

According to the author, this service allows members to not only make new friends but to also share information about themselves with those they regard as their friends on this platform. In the past, Facebook has been accused of invading the privacy of its members. It is important to note that the amount of information Facebook has on any of its members is particularly immense.

Indeed, when signing up, a user is provided with the option of filling our approximately 20 pieces of personal data including but not in any way limited to birthday, name (s), education and employment history, sex, relationship status, views on religion and politics etc. From a casual observer's point-of-view, this information is not particularly revealing. However, filling out such information avails to all who care to view an individual's profile with a comprehensive snapshot of a person.

Hence from a critical point-of-view, the kind of information currently stored in Facebook's severs regarding its individual members can be considered rather sensitive. With that in mind, there is an existing need for Facebook to guarantee users of efficient safeguards as well conditions tailored to protect such information from manipulation. Does Facebook have these conditions and safeguards? A Chronology of Privacy Breaches In some instances, the privacy of users is undermined by the fact that social networking services are motivated or driven by the need to make profit.

This in most cases ultimately sparks the need for personal information sharing. In 2007, a marketing initiative christened Bacon was launched by Facebook. In the opinion of Tavani, this initiative was designed to enhance information sharing between members in regard to the activities they undertook i.e. The purchases they made etc. (155). This initiative turned out to be rather controversial when "it disclosed what purchases users made at certain Web sites" (Tavani 155).

This in essence was an abuse of the privacy of users especially given that the social networking service reneged on a commitment it had made earlier not to share information deemed personally identifiable. In the past, Facebook has also had to contend with user concerns over what happens to the information stored on Facebook's servers once members chose to deactivate their accounts permanently. As Tavani points out, users in this case were afraid that such information could in future be sold to third parties (156).

Although Facebook recently amended its provisions allowing users to request for the permanent deletion of all information pertaining to an account on the deactivation or termination of the same, there is an existing need for the service to explicitly reassure users that it does not retain any of the said information on its servers. In recent times, the social networking service has been criticized heavily for its facial recognition feature.

This feature facilitates tagging of photos by suggesting names of those to be tagged based on a comparison of recently uploaded photos with those of the uploader's pals. The privacy debate in this case was sparked by Facebook's move to roll-out the feature without the issuance of an advance notice to users especially given that some members may not be comfortable with having their names suggested in this arrangement.

As an indicator of the seriousness of the issue as far as user privacy is concerned, James points out that the EU has made its intent to probe the move public citing privacy concerns (n.p). Facebook has also been accused of tracking users even after they log out of active sessions (Mello, n.p.). For this, some users have gone ahead to file a complaint against the social networking service seeking billions of U.S. dollars from the site for what they call a violation of their privacy.

Facebook has however vehemently denied the allegations. Dissenting Views There are however those who are of the opinion that users are equally to blame for Facebook privacy breeches. Those advancing this line of thought feel that users share too much information while disregarding privacy concerns. Indeed, in the opinion of Levmore and Nussbaum, some people "willingly expose their own personal information online…" (28). However, even if this is indeed true to some extent, Facebook is still to blame for allowing and indeed facilitating this disclosure.

In the opinion of Gutwirth Poullet and De Hert, Facebook actively encourages users to provide current and accurate information about themselves (120). It can also be argued that Facebook does indeed have in place a valid privacy policy. However, the effectiveness of such a policy is largely debatable. In the opinion of Bus et al., a vast majority of privacy polices happen to be abstruse and long (222). In such a case, the authors point out that a reader's ability to absorb the content of such a policy is greatly inhibited.

The situation is further complicated by the right of the concerned entity to effect changes to "its policy at will, giving due notice of such change, ironically, within the policy itself and therefore requiring interested individuals to read it not once but repeatedly" (Bus et al. 222). Thus in our case, Facebook's privacy policy does little to address or guarantee users' right to privacy as well as need for the same.

The Need to Protect the Privacy of Members and the Way Forward Several measures can be adopted to enhance the privacy of the users of social network services including but not limited to Facebook and Twitter. In the opinion of Bus et al., one such measure is the formulation of privacy policies that are brief or short (222). This would enhance the ability of the user to clearly understand what is contained in the same. Further,.