Privacy is getting compromised in the modern digital age come social networking – Part 3

This week, the European Commission proposed new online privacy rules that give users among other protections the right to ask for the deletion of information about them on sites such as Facebook and Google. The proposal, which if passed into law would go into effect in 2014, would have global implications.

“Companies will have to play by the European rules,” said John Simpson, director of privacy projects for the group Consumer Watchdog. “And if they do that in Europe, it will be harder for them not to do it in other places such as the U.S.”

Outside of the legal machine, technologists are dealing with the reality that data is out of the bag and it won’t go back in. The challenge now is how to close the bag and prevent further leakage.

“The first step is to find data that is not being shared in this way now because it is too sensitive, and than discover ways to share it safely with sub-sets of the world, not the whole world, and use that to prove there is a safe data sharing market,” says Eve Maler, an analyst with Forrester.

Before joining Forrester, Maler spearheaded and continues to work on an ongoing effort called User Managed Access (UMA), technology designed to put the user in control of their personal data, deciding who gets what and what they can do with it.

It’s a work in progress, and it builds on other emerging technologies, notably OAuth 2.0, an authentication/authorization framework for securing access to data.

“UMA is about authorized sharing of your stuff no matter where it is and with other folks no matter where they are,” says Maler.

There are other efforts underway to help users control their information and relationships online such as personal data stores, and Vendor Relationship Management, a project at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Jan 31 2012. Filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.