INTERNATIONAL:
28 January 2012 --
Keep 'it' to yourself - 'it' being personal data. This is no
trite
message today. How many of you received (and you would
have, if you
use one of Google's 70 services) Google's announcement of a
single
privacy policy this week? Have you actually read their 5
principles?
Good for Google, perhaps not so good for the user.
It is by coincidence or perhaps Providence arranged it, that
Data
Protection Day is celebrated on the same day we commemorate
Thomas
Aquinas. Benedict
XVI, speaking about TA,
reminded us of his importance today especially in the field of
ethics
and human rights, and it is precisely here that Data
Protection Day and
Thomas Aquinas coincide, especially as at some point in the
literature,
this Day (now celebrated widely on 28 January) is explained as
celebrating: "the dignity of the individual as expressed
through
personal information".
So what are Google's 5 principles, now that they have rolled
70
services under one policy (which means if you have personal
data with
Gmail you have personal data with YouTube, Picasa etc)?
At least know
them. They claim to:
1. Use information to
provide our users with valuable products and services. 2. Develop products that
reflect strong privacy standards and practices. 3. Make the collection of
personal information transparent. 4. Give users meaningful
choices to protect their privacy. 5. Be a responsible steward
of the information we hold.
It
is up for debate whether they really keep to that - you cannot
opt out
on their 'privacy' policy for Gmail for example, so how does
'4' apply
there?
Facebook recently had to settle a case where they were found
to have
"deceived customers by telling them they could keep their
information
on Facebook private then repeatedly allowing it to be shared
and made
public" (Facebook vs US Federal Trade Commission).
All this
matters to you and me very much! At the Pisana, for example,
the level
of Firewall protection on sdb.org has to be seen to be
believed, and at
times we curse it up hill and down dale - but it (touch wood)
resists
some pretty virulent attacks on a regular basis - and it needs
to! We
hold a lot of information! We are currently determining what
is 'open
data' which we would happily encourage broad use of by search
engines,
and what is not. It is one thing to have a 'privacy
policy' and yet
another to enforce it.
It bothers some of us that so many, including people who
travel
regularly use Gmail when, say, Thunderbird with IMAP enabled
would be
much safer. We already know that Gmail 'reads' every email and
grabs
every email address 'out in the wild', even for just a few
unprotected
minutes. These are issues that deserve discussion at the
highest level
of an organisation, including ours.
Have people followed the SOPA and PIPA debate? On the surface
it sounds
like something only US citizens shoudl be interested in - it
is their
Government which is debating these things after all. And also
on the
surface it sounds fine - we DO want to stop Internet Piracy
don't we?
And we are horrified that a few people from Megaupload were
getting
obscenely rich and maybe doing a lot of illegal things - but
what gives
one prominent Government the right to intervene in other
jurisdictions?
And if you read the vague language of the currently stalled
SOPA Bill
you immediately see it could be used to silence legitimate
speech...
that is not what the recent World Communication Day Message
was trying
to say about silence in modern day communications.
This is not a rant. I am simply pointing to a 'Day' that
has
particular meaning for a group that wishes to educate and
evangelise,
and which would be seeing, would it not, that digital
citizenship,
privacy issues and the like are regular items in its school
curricula.
If something has meaning, it means that we are doing something
about it personally. Here are some suggestions:
- examine the privacy policy in place locally (school, house,
province....)
- think about the wisdom or otherwise of using Gmail
- think about why you would use Google search when there is
DuckDuckGo (stupid name I know but look at their privacy
policy)
- secure your computer with a firewall - it costs nothing.
Indeed use Linux, I am even tempted to say - costs even less
:-)
- check your browser privacy settings - are they suitable for
your role and tasks?
- consider encryption, especially given certain roles and
tasks.
- be aware of location data misuse (your cell phone can track
you).
- use strong passwords (8 characters, mixed letters and
symbols).
- trust - but verify. You'd be surprised how many odd names
claim to be
'Salesian' and seek 'registration' daily with sdb.org. We ask
a simple
two word question in any of 30 languages which, though not
infallible,
is a good human check - and I'm not about to reveal it here,
either!
(It often catches out novices who are not listed in any
'elenco', so
sorry for them, but at least they can escape the trap).
- backup regularly
- show an interest in educational
resources in this area.
