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I am the co-host of This is What’s What, a podcast discussion with Internet Safety expert Katie L. Greer. We discuss current events regarding the safety of children on the Internet. This is episode 16.
For this episode of the This is What’s What podcast, we discuss the proposed California legislation SB 242, which contains some provisions dealing with the privacy settings of social networks as well as parent’s rights to oversee the profiles of minors.
We take a look at the pros and cons of using facial recognition software, and how the former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, recently told a London audience that it was a service that Google was “unlikely” to create.
Director of Internet Safety for WhatsWhat.me, Katie Greer, leaves us with an Internet Safety Tip that addresses establishing some best practices for tagging pictures of family and friends on social networks.
California SB 242
Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett has introduced a bill as the Social Network Privacy Act. The bill addresses two significant issues that we have discussed on this podcast in the past, the difficulty users encounter when trying to set proper privacy controls and the responsibility of parents overseeing their children’s profiles.
The very first aspect of the bill establishes that a new user to a site should have all of the information collected during the registration process default to a setting of private, rather than the current default of public. It is a common complaint, even from the most informed user of social networks, that it is difficult to understand all of the ramification of the privacy settings. The bill also insists that the information be presented in “plain language”.
The San Fransisco Chronicle is reporting strong opposition from internet companies. Opposition that includes complaints that the requirements are unworkable. This would be a legitimate complaint for parts of the bill, however as we discuss in the podcast, the change to the default privacy settings is certainly not one of them.
The true challenging aspect of the legislation comes from the portion that attempts to provide some control to parents over the networking actions of their children. The bill gives parents the right to request the removal of any personally identifiable information, and to have the removal take place within 48 hours. Failure to knowingly comply would result in a $10,000 fine in each case.
There are so many reasons why this proposal would be considered unworkable, that it calls into question its ability to pass the State Senate General Assembly. Katie points out the fact that Facebook for example does not have the most responsive customer support system for users (although she mentions that they are quick to respond when contacted in an official capacity from law enforcement). Simultaneous to this bill making headlines, Facebook and others were testifying to the United States Congress on privacy concerns and what came to light is that there are only 100 staff members at Facebook who monitor these types of activities. This does not bode well for 48 hour response. More importantly, how would Facebook determine exactly who has the right to request takedowns? Without any form of authentication process in the first place, determining this authority from a broken home or a parent outside the jurisdiction of California would make implementation of this portion of the privacy bill unachievable.
This is an initial volley in the ongoing struggle for consumer protections and the social networks. These companies are built on the basis of mining personal information for economic gain, and in some cases can take advantage of the mass populous’ lack of understanding of the privacy policies. There needs to be some corporate responsibility as we are now living in an environment where there can be actual harm caused due to lax privacy controls, but where the government oversight comes in is still to be determined.
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