Privacy policy for the social web

Let me make a point first: "Anything you post on the Internet is out of your control. Forever." This includes anything you search on Google, you post on Facebook, etc. Even if you use privacy settings, or even if you control the Web Server (which you usually don't), someone who reads your data can copy and share it, without your knowledge or consent.

However, there is great benefit in having a presence on the Web. You can let people know more about you and your work.

Just be aware that it is a public presence. So, don't say anything that you would not say in a public place for anyone to hear, for example, in a plaza or in national television.

My current social web policy is the following. I'm using:
- Email as a messaging service;
- Skype as a quick messaging service (sometimes with voice too);
- my personal web page as a "live" business card and CV;
- Facebook as a "live" address book;
- LinkedIn as a "live" business address book;
- Twitter as a quick sharing service;
- Blogger as a sharing service.

So, now you know what to expect from me online. See you around in a "plaza" somewhere ;-)

Private tweeting

Everybody has a busy schedule these days, and scheduling meetings just for sharing the latest updates is not very efficient, although nothing replaces eye-to-eye contact.

A possible way to keep a loosely coupled team in context would be to use Twitter, but you probably don't want to expose sensitive business information through a public service with no strong privacy assurances.



One way to "emulate" Twitter would be a mailing list where only the email subject would be used, or a Google Group, or ...

Do you have any ideas about this? Do know any free implementation of simple, small-scale, Twitter-like application? If you do, please leave a comment.

Weak privacy or dust for the eyes / Privacidade fraca ou poeira para os olhos

The Portuguese government has legislated that all motor vehicles now must have a built-in identification chip. In the law it is claimed that the chip poses no privacy problems because only a "code" is communicated and access range is local.

This statement is not true. By always transmitting the same code, all that it takes is to know a vehicle's code - and to know who uses the vehicle - to have a key to for track and trace data.

I recommend the following paper for a better understanding of privacy:
A. Juels and S. Weis. Defining Strong Privacy for RFID. 2006.

/ This post is bilingual: English (U.S.) and Portuguese (Portugal) /

A salvaguarda do direito à privacidade dos proprietários e/ou condutores e a protecção dos respectivos dados pessoais não são postas em causa com este sistema, uma vez que o DEM apenas transmite um código e não qualquer elemento de identidade dos proprietários e/ou condutores. Por seu turno, os equipamentos de detecção electrónica de veículos são dotados de um alcance meramente local, não permitindo um acompanhamento permanente dos veículos em circulação.

Decreto-Lei que, no uso da autorização legislativa concedida pela Lei n.º 60/2008, de 16 de Setembro, procede à segunda alteração do Decreto-Lei n.º 54/2005, de 3 de Março

Esta afirmação não é verdadeira. Ao transmitir sempre o mesmo código basta saber qual o código de um dado veículo - e saber quem é a pessoa que usa o veículo - para ter a chave que dará acesso a todo um rastro de dados.

Recomendo a leitura do seguinte artigo sobre privacidade (em inglês):
A. Juels and S. Weis. Defining Strong Privacy for RFID. 2006.