Where private chats linger on

NICOLA RUSSELL

My 10-year-old son set up a Facebook account last month.

I discovered it almost immediately, when he tagged himself in a mutual friend's photo.

I deactivated his account promptly and we had a family meeting to discuss why I'd done it, the argument being that he may not want details of his 10-year-old life still around for all to see when he is a teenager, let alone 20.

Practise what you preach I thought, and decided to see what Facebook had on me.

Getting my data was easy, once I knew how (see below).

Ten minutes later I had an email with scrolls of info divided neatly into folders: photos, videos, wall, personal messages, etcetera.

The first three were as expected. I have always carefully managed my digital identity, only uploading photos and information I would be happy to be viewed in public. My privacy settings are also on full.

I don't have embarrassing intoxicated photos. Neither have I left my Facebook account open and been hacked with obscenities.

It was the last folder of personal messages that floored me.

Every private chat I have ever had with friends is in that folder. And girls can talk.

As I scrolled down, the last three years of my personal life unfolded before me like a three-year diary.

The broad sweep of my digital shadow left me in a cold sweat.

Naive perhaps? After all, my messages are just another byte of data to Facebook.

I'm not alone. As our lives become more intertwined with digital technology a Sunday Star-Times poll reveals many of us are desperately trying to maintain some control of our privacy.

Around 85 per cent of respondents to our poll had taken steps to limit the amount of personal information given to social networking sites. But have we already let too much information out there?

Social networking expert, The Common Room's Hayden Raw is one who urges caution.

"When I was first on Facebook I was a lot more free with what I was posting because it felt more like a closed community."

However as Facebook has become a behemoth, millions (dependent on privacy settings) have access to what you post. Everyone, from prospective employers to people who meet you at a party, can use it to do background checks on you.

"It is not private any more, that's the change that is happening and that's what's going to change the behaviour of people online," Raw said.

"Some people are changing the way they broadcast their life and others are just running with `transparency is transparency and if you don't like me then too bad'."

As for me, having requested my Facebook history, I have gone back through messages deleting them. A second request was void of these messages. Phew.

Raw said keeping personal messages is part of Facebook's responsibility as a major website.

"It doesn't surprise me that they save everything including the incidental because, to the website, it is just another a piece of content."

What users do need to be aware of, says Raw, is the pop-ups allowing information to be accessed by third parties such as those who developed "Farmville" and "Top Five Friends".

"Because the developers of those applications are unknown, when you authorise them to access your information you are authorising the unknown," he said.

Because of Facebook's size, Raw says it's in its own interests to take precautions around privacy. Third party developers have less to lose by exploiting personal information.

"Privacy on Facebook, from Facebook, is going to be as as good as it gets but when you are putting that in the hands of the teenager developer who has made an application that is completely arbitrary, that's when it gets interesting."

However, this risk is entirely avoidable if we train ourselves to read the fine print, something most of us don't do.

"We are ingrained to not read dialogue buttons so if there is an 'OK' button, we will more than likely hit it."

HOW TO CHECK YOUR FACEBOOK FOOTPRINT

Go to account seetings (top right of Facebook taskbar)

At bottom of the screen click: Download a copy of your Facebook data.

A notification will be sent to your email address when the data is processed. This took about 10 minutes the first time I did it, and 30 minutes the second

- © Fairfax NZ News