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Agreed. Damn good PR move. <sarcasm> Plus those employers shouldn't be getting their Facebook background checks for free. FB has to protect it's future revenue

Agreed. Damn good PR move. <sarcasm> Plus those employers shouldn't be getting their Facebook background checks for free. FB has to protect it's future revenue streams! </sarcasm> When FB starts protecting user data from everybody, individuals, business and government, that'll be something. Might even be worth having to wade through your aunt's cats-in-clothing posts.

joering2 15y ago
HOW can Facebook, or anyone else _successfully_ protect user data from government without breaking the law?
- orbitingpluto 15y ago
  By providing at least token resistance? People shouldn't be getting roped in by the law because law enforcement has free reign to peruse profiles. As well, infiltrating profiles by 'social hacking' (aka asking to friend someone by having a profile with breasts on it) shouldn't be allowed by law enforcement doing fishing operations. In other words, communications on Facebook should be considered as private communication. Monetization by anonymous advertising akin to Google's model should be the accepted quid pro quo for usage.
- dakotasmith 15y ago
  Sometimes pieces of government are unaware of laws they are breaking until a well-funded challenger can use the courts to educate it.
- rhizome 15y ago
  Successfully protecting user data from the government isn't an either/or zero-sum situation, it's a game of inches. They should protect it up to the point at which they are most unable, and not a minute nor filing before.
- Cushman 15y ago
  Require a confirmed court order before any amount of cooperation with authorities, including the acknowledgement that data might exist. Assign a legal team to investigate all such orders, and proactively seek injunctions against those that overstep their authority. Require that all government employees and contractors disclose their involvement (not publicly, obviously) and subject those individuals to enhanced scrutiny with regards to unwarranted data mining. Pursue aggressive legal action against the state for any individuals found in violation of this policy. Of course, any of this would require Facebook or anyone else to treat its users as customers rather than products.
  - DavidSJ 15y ago
    They can also publish statistics about law enforcement requests by political region, as Google does in its transparency report.
  - lurchpop 15y ago
    This would be amazing. What I'd also like to know is if LEOs have FB accounts with additional features, or if they have specialized UI where they can query user data. A whistleblower at Verizon a few years ago talked about a paid self-serve web interface they built for law enforcement to query location data because the volume of requests was too much to process manually. Does the "secret interpretation" of the Patriot Act we keep hearing about include unfettered access to social networks?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- rdl 15y ago
  Avoid collecting potentially sensitive information in the first place, if at all possible. Collecting and retaining the least possible amount of information about users is good security; it's just bad commercial practice. It also protects your users in case you go out of business and end up sold (or pivoting) into a non-privacy-protecting business model, like what happened with Rapleaf.
shangrila 15y ago
FB is indeed probably upset because employers were stupid and started asking applicants for their info directly instead of going behind their backs and asking FB for it instead (which FB would have happily given them ... for a fee, of course). It's pretty likely FB will quietly roll out a paid background check service (which will be hyper-secretive and kept whisper-quiet) at the same time they are publicly grandstanding about this issue. In the linked article, there is a link to a second article about a US Senator who is currently crusading on this issue. He comes right out and says there will be exceptions for law enforcement, government contractors, and jobs with security clearances. Look for them to extend those exceptions until social media spying is back to being a de-facto part of applying for a job, any job. They're going to legitimize this while pretending to be fighting it. (sounds paranoid, yes ... until it happens)

joering2 15y ago

HOW can Facebook, or anyone else _successfully_ protect user data from government without breaking the law?

orbitingpluto 15y ago
By providing at least token resistance? People shouldn't be getting roped in by the law because law enforcement has free reign to peruse profiles. As well, infiltrating profiles by 'social hacking' (aka asking to friend someone by having a profile with breasts on it) shouldn't be allowed by law enforcement doing fishing operations. In other words, communications on Facebook should be considered as private communication. Monetization by anonymous advertising akin to Google's model should be the accepted quid pro quo for usage.
dakotasmith 15y ago
Sometimes pieces of government are unaware of laws they are breaking until a well-funded challenger can use the courts to educate it.
rhizome 15y ago
Successfully protecting user data from the government isn't an either/or zero-sum situation, it's a game of inches. They should protect it up to the point at which they are most unable, and not a minute nor filing before.
Cushman 15y ago
Require a confirmed court order before any amount of cooperation with authorities, including the acknowledgement that data might exist. Assign a legal team to investigate all such orders, and proactively seek injunctions against those that overstep their authority. Require that all government employees and contractors disclose their involvement (not publicly, obviously) and subject those individuals to enhanced scrutiny with regards to unwarranted data mining. Pursue aggressive legal action against the state for any individuals found in violation of this policy. Of course, any of this would require Facebook or anyone else to treat its users as customers rather than products.
- DavidSJ 15y ago
  They can also publish statistics about law enforcement requests by political region, as Google does in its transparency report.
- lurchpop 15y ago
  This would be amazing. What I'd also like to know is if LEOs have FB accounts with additional features, or if they have specialized UI where they can query user data. A whistleblower at Verizon a few years ago talked about a paid self-serve web interface they built for law enforcement to query location data because the volume of requests was too much to process manually. Does the "secret interpretation" of the Patriot Act we keep hearing about include unfettered access to social networks?
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
rdl 15y ago
Avoid collecting potentially sensitive information in the first place, if at all possible. Collecting and retaining the least possible amount of information about users is good security; it's just bad commercial practice. It also protects your users in case you go out of business and end up sold (or pivoting) into a non-privacy-protecting business model, like what happened with Rapleaf.

shangrila 15y ago

FB is indeed probably upset because employers were stupid and started asking applicants for their info directly instead of going behind their backs and asking FB for it instead (which FB would have happily given them ... for a fee, of course). It's pretty likely FB will quietly roll out a paid background check service (which will be hyper-secretive and kept whisper-quiet) at the same time they are publicly grandstanding about this issue. In the linked article, there is a link to a second article about a US Senator who is currently crusading on this issue. He comes right out and says there will be exceptions for law enforcement, government contractors, and jobs with security clearances. Look for them to extend those exceptions until social media spying is back to being a de-facto part of applying for a job, any job. They're going to legitimize this while pretending to be fighting it. (sounds paranoid, yes ... until it happens)