Thanks to movies and books, the word “private investigation” often brings thoughts of the investigator sneaking through bushes with small cameras and pointy microphones, clandestine meetings in dark alleyways and chameleon-like abilities. While movies can ape real life, much of private investigation begins with research – and with today’s technology, some of the research begins online.
Lately, I’ve seen a huge online scandal hitting the Internet highways and byways. Headlines scream about Facebook changing their privacy policy in a way that allows them to take all your supposedly private information and place it for public viewing, and these headlines aren’t all from small news networks and blogs:
(CNN) “Some quitting Facebook as privacy concerns escalate” — Concerns over Facebook’s new privacy policy and the online social network’s recent efforts to spread its information across the Web have led some of the site’s faithful to delete their accounts — or at least try to.
(PCMagazine) “Facebook Privacy Under Review Again After EU Criticism” — A European data protection group on Wednesday penned a letter to Facebook in which it told the social networking site that its recent privacy changes are “unacceptable”.
(The New York Times) “Price of Facebook Privacy? Start Clicking” — Pop quiz: Which is longer, the United States Constitution or Facebook’s Privacy Policy? If you guessed the latter, you’re right. Facebook’s Privacy Policy is 5,830 words long; the United States Constitution, without any of its amendments, is a concise 4,543 words.
A Private Investigator Point of View
With over 400 million people with Facebook accounts, one can only imagine how many are now concerned about their private information being compromised. From the view of a private investigator, however, the entire scandal is unsurprising. Before signing up, in and on any website, anywhere, please take a moment to remember the following points:
- The Internet is a public domain. In the U.S. alone, over 259 billion people use the Internet for various reasons.
- Anything you put on the Internet, from your interests to your credit card, can become public knowledge, either through hackers, security leaks – or through a change in privacy terms.
- Most websites have some form of a Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Most of these policies include the stipulate “these terms are subject to change”. You may, or may not be notified of these changes.
- Facebook sent a notification to their 400 million users’ Facebook accounts. Few read them. If you’re sent a notification by a website with which you have an account, read it. You may not agree with the changes, and you only have a set amount of time to remove your account before the changes go into affect.
The most important point is if you don’t want the possibility of your private information becoming public do not post it on a public platform like the Internet. It’s only by being a truly private person that you really control your privacy.
If the Facebook privacy changes make you uneasy and you’d prefer to delete your account, read: Permanently Delete a Facebook Account
If you’d like to keep your Facebook account, but still maintain a high level of privacy, read: Sopho’s Recommendations for Facebook Settings
Privacy is a wonderful right, easily given away with the click of a button. Even on this private investigation blog, we very carefully moderate and monitor the comments posted, deleting any that seem of a sensitive nature to the comment poster. As a New Hampshire and Massachusetts private investigator, I strongly urge you to consider any information a website asks you for, as well as any information you choose to share.
