Facebook Privacy

Facebook users have a legitimate claim to privacy, even though they themselves are posting the information about themselves. Facebook has had a history of invading its user’s privacy, and the intent is to sell the user’s private information to advertisers (Laudon, K. C. 2013). The sharing privacy controls allow you to select who the users want to see the items they’re sharing. They have the option to make it public, friends, or only the user. The downfall of this, is that if a user is tagged in the post, it’s much more difficult for them to control the privacy settings of that post. The best way to protect your privacy on Facebook is to uncheck the “Allow select partners…” box under the instant personalization settings on Facebook (Laudon, K.C. 2013). This will disable the feature of Facebook selling user’s personal information to advertisers. As well as Facebook being able to sell our private information to advertisers, Facebook also has a software for facial recognition. “Facebook's use, on the other hand, is far more intrusive. Instead of simply linking a biometric signature of a user's face with his or her name, Facebook links each users' biometric signature with any and all information associated with that user's account—e.g., birthdate, address, family members, friends, education information and employment information (Shaw, J. 2012).” The facial recognition software is a potential threat to privacy because not only are they able to access the user’s face, but they are able to access everything that is linked to the user’s face on the internet.

References:

Laudon, K. C. & Laudon, J. P. (2014). Management information systems: Managing the digital firm (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Laudon, K. C. (2013). Management information systems: Facebook Privacy (Facebook Privacy Case). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Shaw, J. (2012). F ACEBOOK CONFIDENTIAL: The Privacy Implications of Facebook's Surreptitious and Exploitative Utilization of Facial Recognition Technology. Temple Journal Of Science, Technology & Environmental Law, 31(1), 149-175.