Jun 12, 2009

Deirdre Mulligan on Online Privacy

From CIO Magazine

How Facebook and Twitter Are Changing Data Privacy Rules

By Michael Fitzgerald

CIOs think about privacy the way some people think about exercise: with a sigh and a sense of impending pain. Outside of regulated industries like health care—where patient privacy is paramount—privacy affects CIOs as a corollary of security when, say, a laptop holding millions of people's records is lost or hackers siphon off customer data.

"CIOs generally don't care about privacy," says Peter Milla, former CIO and chief privacy officer at Survey Sampling International (SSI). Milla says most CIOs either focus on technology, or regard privacy as outside their domain, the province of a chief privacy or chief security officer. He finds both attitudes wrongheaded. CIOs, Milla says, should "want to be ahead of the curve" on privacy....

But people also ask for photos or videos to be removed from social networking sites, says Deirdre Mulligan, a lawyer and former law professor who is now assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Information. Individuals and communities have balked at the way Google Maps' Street View exposes location information. Meanwhile, a 2008 Harris Interactive poll found that 60 percent of Americans were uneasy about having Web content customized for them based on their usage patterns....

Read more...

Last updated: October 4, 2016