Courtesy of Facebook

There are currently approximately 12 million Canadian members of Facebook and Canada’s privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, is concerned about the lack of control that users have over their personal information. These are Ms Stoddart’s concerns:

1. There are not enough safeguards in place to prevent 950,000 third-party developers around the world from getting unauthorized access to your personal information.
2. Facebook does not ensure that you give meaningful consent before disclosing your personal information to the developers.
3. Even though you have deactivated your account, Facebook keeps your information indefinitely.
4. The profiles of deceased users remain on Facebook. They say that this is done for memorial purposes, but no where is this made clear.
5. Facebook allows you to provide personal information about non-users without their consent and Facebook keeps the addresses indefinitely.

If Facebook does not comply and take measures to rectify these issues within 45 days the privacy commissioner has the option of pursuing legal action against Facebook. David Fewer, acting director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, first brought the complaint against Facebook in May 2008. Once the Facebook issue is resolved Mr. Fewer will be going after other social networking sites to bring them in line with the changes that Facebook will hopefully be making.

The Internet has grown so quickly that the law hasn’t been able to keep up with it, particularly in areas of privacy and the protection of personal information. Most people who join social networking sites never give the issues of privacy a second thought. Maybe it’s time that we did.