Recommended Reading for Mark Zuckerberg: A free privacy primer

In yesterday's post about 2007 I made a somewhat light-hearted reference to the need for a 'back-to-basics' education in privacy. I also suggested that the Facebook Beacon privacy snafu might not be something other than a privacy ignorance indicator, namely, a calculated attempt to push the limits of user-acceptance of commercial of private data.

Well, the more I read about Facebook Ads, like the use of personal images by commercial advertisers, the more I wonder whether some people really did skip Privacy for Business Owners 101.  On the face of it, pun intended, Facebook Ads comes close to violating several of these fundamental data privacy principles:

1. There must be no personal data record keeping systems whose existence is secret.


2. There must be a way for an individual to find out what information about him is in a record and how it is used.


3. There must be a way for an individual to prevent information about him that was obtained for one purpose being used or made available for other purposes without his consent.


4. There must be a way for an individual to correct or amend a record of identifiable information about him.


5. Any organization creating, maintaining, using, or disseminating records of identifiable personal data must assure the reliability of the data for their intended use and must take precautions to prevent misuse of the data.

And where did these principles come from? Some avant-garde, privacy-obsessed Scandanavian country? No, these are the basic privacy principles that were laid out by the U.S. government ten years before Mr. Zuckerman was born.

And if Mr. Zuckerman had taken Privacy 101 he would already know that the first U.S. legislation to consider privacy in the context of computers appeared after Elliot Richardson, who was Richard Nixon’s Secretary for Health, Education and Welfare, commissioned a study of record-keeping practices in the computer age. The resulting report, commonly known as the “HEW Report,” recommended the enactment of a federal “Code of Fair Information Practice” for all automated personal data systems. The code envisioned by HEW contained the above five principles that would be given legal effect as “safeguard requirements” for automated personal data systems. The Privacy Act of 1974 is embodied HEW principles in law, establishing protections for personal data held by the federal government.

Fortunately, both Mr. Zuckerman, and you, dear reader, can learn these and other fascinating facts about privacy for free. Just download the free electronic version of Privacy for Business available at www.privacyforbusiness.com. Who knows, they might just keep the FTC off your back and the feds out of your IT department.