Politicians are perhaps not the best people to talk to about privacy; they intentionally thrust themselves into the spotlight, and can be responsible for annoying commercials and phone calls that bother the rest of us at home. Still, Facebook arguably accomplished something today by discussing privacy with six politicians and the CEO and of the Family Online Safety Institute.
In recognition of Data Privacy Day, Facebook posted quotes from the Chairman of the French Data Protection Commission, the Australian Privacy Commissioner, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario, and three U.S. representatives (along with the aforementioned CEO). This demonstrates that Facebook’s at least thinking about privacy.
It also indicates that Facebook is on fairly decent terms with all of these individuals. Most of the quotes were meaningless and/or self-promotional, and we won’t bore you by repeating even half of them. But the fact that the politicians supplied them is interesting; you probably wouldn’t find these folks dealing with a company they disliked or considered too controversial.
So a couple of takeaway points might be that Facebook has your best interests at heart and possesses friends in high places.
As for privacy-related advice, we’ll just relay the words of Stephen Balkam, the Family Online Safety Institute’s CEO. He wrote that too few people "read privacy policies and set privacy settings. Data Privacy Day is a good time to think about what information you are revealing about yourself on the web and take the time to talk to kids about the content you are posting and where you are posting it."
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