Is Privacy Dead?

Between the press reporting endless incidences of documents hacked straight off websites and the fact that 800 million people regularly post information on Facebook alone, is online privacy a relic of the past?

“Oh dear, another footballer has said something daft on Twitter!”

How often do we hear on the news about powerful people doing senseless things on Social Media? This is often irritating- or entertaining- depending on your outlook, but it is not really damaging or dangerous to you and me. The real issue of privacy goes way beyond mere concerns about Social Media. With many acts of organised hacking taking place on an ever-increasing basis, is anything truly private in the online world, and how can that affect ME? For example, back in June Citibank’s database was hacked. Credit Card details of more than 200 000 customers were stolen. We will probably never discover the full repercussions of this theft...Surely if Citibank can’t keep hackers at bay, who can?

Let’s take a step back here. During the Cold war, any documents that were of national importance to the USA were securely stored under lock and key, probably in a safe at the centre of the Pentagon. Fast forward to 2011 and the USA repeatedly finds itself in embarrassing situations with Wikileaks continually releasing “Top Secret” documents for the perusal of the public in general. The way in which Wikileaks recently secured “highly sensitive” information is even more humiliating. To cut a long story short: Bradley Manning, then an intelligence analyst in the US army, had access to “restricted information”. He downloaded this “restricted information”, passed it on to Julian Assange at Wikileaks, and is now awaiting trial for 22 criminal acts. How can one possibly explain how “Top Secret” information was easily accessed by a junior enlisted soldier, a Private First Class?

In contrast, there is a “hacktivist” group called “Anonymous” which is responsible for sophisticated attacks on various websites e.g. they overloaded Paypal’s servers, which consequently forced the site to temporarily go offline. Recently they targeted and threatened the Israeli Knesset’s website. This, they claimed, was meant to be a payback for the “Stuxnet Virus”, which targeted computers linked to the Iranian nuclear programme and infected them with a virus. They credited Israel with this attack even though Israel has never claimed responsibility for it. It is possible that Anonymous merely threatened an attack on the Knesset website and never really tried to hack it, which is unlikely, or they simply failed to do so. Apparently the Knesset’s website is so valuable to national security that those who control it have put in place the optimal privacy and safety precautions to ensure that nothing happens to their sensitive information.

When governments, organisations or businesses fail to protect sensitive information, are they as guilty as the hackers and thieves who steal information? To cast light on this, let’s ask what was Citibank’s response to the hacking of valuable card details? They dramatically improved their securirty structure, which leaves us with the question, why was this not in place before?

When it comes to organisational privacy, governments and organisations are failing dismally to protect our privacy. We all know about numerous times when citizen-related government information has been left on a train, or has been hacked straight off a database. What you might not know is that Sony, who are still facing numerous lawsuits over the Playstation Networks (PSN) hacking of card details, have just amended their terms and conditions to lessen their liability in the case of future hacks. Read the small print: you cannot use PSN until you agree to these conditions! It looks like organisations are starting to give up when it comes to facing up to online crime. More worrying, though, is exactly what PSN have done by passing the buck to consumers, merely by altering the small print.

Lets look at another privacy issue: Social media has given people digital identities and millions of us have rushed to join services like Facebook and Twitter, without much thought to the loss of privacy that inevitably results. Back in 2008, President Obama orchestrated one of the most brilliant marketing campaigns in electoral history, intriguing millions of young voters on Facebook and specifically targeting people in the light of the demographics of this medium. Last spring, we saw Social Media rise to the fore of political activism in the Arab world, fundamentally underlying much of that which became known as “The Arab Spring”. In fact, its role was so pivotal that the UN recently declared free unrestricted internet access to be a human right. Here in the UK we all witnessed the way in which Twitter and other social media were used to organise rioting mayhem, and then we watched the same medium being used to help aid the clean up.

What is social media in its essence? One word, it is social. This creates a privacy conundrum: How do you ensure the privacy of something that is fundamentally interactional and social, by its very nature? In fact Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook is very much a believer in online transparency. He was quoted as saying, "More transparency should make for a more tolerant society in which people eventually accept that everybody sometimes does bad or embarrassing things." The question is, has this created the Utopian online world where transparency rules and we all sing “Kumbaya” when people make mistakes? Far from it! Even though Facebook and other social media sites have revolutionised the way in which people and businesses keep in contact, it can go very wrong.

Remember the Facebook juror case? Joanne Fraill, a juror in the court case of Jamie Stewart, was the first juror jailed for eight months after being found to be in contempt of court. Why? During the court case Frail befriended Stewart on Facebook. They were found to be contacting each other about the trial, which meant her integrity as a juror was irreversably tainted.

People have also lost jobs over what they have said on Social Media, relationships have been torn apart, children have been bullied, the examples are endless...far from Mr Zuckerberg’ idea of tolerance and mutual acceptance.

Here’s the thing; unlike any other form of organisational privacy, social media privacy is totally up to you. Social media’s settings will always make your profile public unless you opt out. We, as users of social media, cannot blame the social networks for lack of privacy when we make our information readily available for all to see online.

Let’s not forget just how important online transparency is. Going back to the Arab Spring; just recently impassioned people utilised the vehicle of social media to express their views and beliefs and to demand change. This attracted huge media attention and spiralled into a revolution that effectively brought an end to years of tyranny across large parts of the Arab world. Another example of how large organisations are embracing transparency using social media comes from Domino’s Pizza who ran a “show us your pizza” campaign asking people to upload pictures of their pizza’s onto their Facebook page. This created excitement and enthusiasm and also allowed Domino's to deal swiftly and effectively with any negative feedback that was posted.

Let’s get back to our original question: is privacy dead? This has to be considered in terms of two types of privacy i.e. organisational privacy and social media privacy. It seems that organisational privacy is deteriorating fast and, faced with the threat of Wikileaks and the like, it is imperative for governments and organisations of all sizes to stand up and re-asses how they protect their sensitive data. Not only is it a moral and ethical obligation, but in the UK it is a legal requirement (Data Protection Act 1998). We have the right to insist that any information we provide to anyone is effectively protected.

When it comes to social media, privacy is only dead if we allow it to be. When Tim Burners Lee invented the worldwide web, he conceptualised it as a “common information space in which we communicate by sharing information”. Therefore we should not be surprised that using the web reduces our privacy; that is inevitable! Consequently, any organisation or individual person who does not adequately protect the information that is posted online should assume that it is being shared and is vulnerable to being stolen, simply because that is the nature of the www.

At the same time social media, by providing us with an easy-to-use and effective global means of sharing information, has given us one of the most valuable communication and marketing tools available. In today's world it is essential for people to educate themselves and their children about safe and effective social media usage. Remember that it is wise to never share any private or identifying information over the web and, no matter how cozy an online chat you may be having, never forget that you are utilising a social medium that is, by definition, a “common information space”.

If you want to safeguard your privacy, live by this rule: if you wouldn't put it on a billboard outside your house, don’t put it on the open internet.

Written by Doron Rubin, founder and CEO of Wise Up Design

Wise Up Design specializes in helping business’s use Facebook as an effective marketing tool.

For more information on how Wise Up Design can help your business visit www.facebook.com/wiseupdesign or go to www.wiseupdesign.com