You are.

I think it’s time we stopped having a go at Facebook and start looking at who is publicising the data in the first place.

Despite what you may read in the press, Facebook gives users an incredibly granular set of controls for controlling users’ uploaded content. Other social media sites have good controls but due to lack of maturity and development offer the same security features as Facebook. As we move into the age of the AppInternet with everything having some kind of App store, we need to consider these online tools in the same way and be wary of their privacy and security features too.

But if we take the view that there will always be a vast range of websites and apps across a spectrum of development maturity (and associated security feature maturity) there will always be tools we want to use, and do use that will not be as secure as others. This is no different to traditional high street retailers where some treat our data in higher regard than others. We just need to follow the same principles with online tools as we do with offline ones; be careful what you’re doing and what information you’re giving away.

Would you let a bank know all your personal details? Most likely. They need it and they have a good track record for investing in data security.

Would you trust a stranger with keys to your house and your car? Nope. You don’t know them and don’t know if they can be trusted.

So when installing tools such as Facebook Places which advise everyone where you are geographically, or an Android app that can access all the data on your mobile phone, just have some common sense and ask whether you would do this in an offline environment?

I’m a firm believer we need to take responsibility for our own data and if we choose to put it on 3rd party websites; or install 3rd party applications on our personal data stores then we need to look a bit closer to home when things start to go wrong.

Carl