Experts can’t agree on privacy issues

EXPERTS at a Westminster Forum keynote panel on social media and online privacy couldn't decide on development of privacy policy or what defines "the right to be forgotten".

The panel included Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, Dr Chris Pounder, director of Amberhawk Training, Georgina Nelson, in-house lawyer for Which, and Tessa Mayes, a writer and film director, and (deep breath) Merlin Sereld Victor Gilbert Hay, or the Earl of Erroll for short.

The popularity and success of online social notworking websites has soared over the past few years, with Facebook having over 600 million users. The phenomenon has come with a barrel load of issues, most prominently concerning data and privacy concerns.

Richard Allen, director of policy for something at Facebook admitted that Facebook hasn't always got it right when it comes to privacy policy but said he thinks that the balance now is right. He went on to explain that users' concerns are with regard to control of the information that they publish, specifically the ability to delete, but still know that data remains somewhere, should they want to access it at any later date. How very "Hotel California" of Facebook here. "You can check out, but you can never leave," indeed.

Confusion bounced around between different points and opinions, with some saying that the right to be forgotten is unnecessary and creates a clash between freedom of speech and privacy rights. Others gave the opinion that we need to educate people about privacy and make sure channels clearly state the deal when users sign up, rather than continue to change or add to the privacy policy.

Pounder said that it's not a privacy issue, but that whatever is put in the public domain can no longer be private. Killock said that Facebook undermines people's expectation of privacy issues and the changes to policy only introduce more fragmentation, rather than better privacy protection.

Possibly a better way to explain this "right to be forgotten" issue might be to rename it the "right to delete data". The Earl of Erroll interestingly pointed out that most data isn't kept in the UK anyway, so a lot of laws might not apply. As to how things will move from now, no one seems to have any idea. Allen announced he is meeting with the European Commission over the next two days in Brussels to discuss these issues further. µ