Social site use rising as privacy fears grow
BY VERNON SMALL
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Digital living
New Zealanders' use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter is soaring amid growing public concern about privacy on the web, a new poll shows.
The UMR survey made public yesterday by Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff shows high levels of concern about privacy and risks to personal information on the internet, especially that posted by children, as their social life is increasingly being lived online.
Overall, 43 per cent of those surveyed used a social networking site, up from 32 per cent last June and just 14 per cent in August 2007.
About four-fifths of those aged 18 to 30 use social networking sites.
"These results show that social life is increasingly being lived online," Ms Shroff said.
Use is likely to be even higher among those under 18, though there is no accurate data on that.
Of the 750 people surveyed 83 per cent were concerned about the security of their personal information and 88 per cent were concerned about information shared by children on the internet.
Ms Shroff said it was surprising many thought their social networking was more private than it may be.
More than half believed they were mainly private spaces where people shared information with their friends, while 42 per cent believed they were mainly public and information could be seen by many.
"If I had only one tip to give to people, it is to realise that when you're putting information on social networking sites, you're publishing that information to the whole world, and that it's there for ever," she said.
"Don't ever assume you're only having a chat with your friends."
Users should always be careful with information such as cellphone numbers, birth date, mother's maiden name or other ways they could be identified.
In the survey 86 per cent claimed they knew how to protect their privacy settings, and 66 per cent said they had changed privacy settings.
Ms Shroff recommended internet safety resources available through Hectors World, Netsafe and the Privacy Commissioner's website.
The UMR survey found that in the public sector, the health service, including doctors, hospitals and pharmacists, had the highest level of trust at 94 per cent (92 per cent in 2008), followed by police at 88 per cent (up 4 per cent) and Inland Revenue at 84 per cent (up 8 per cent).
But those surveyed were less confident about government agencies' use of their information.
What Can Go Wrong?
- A Taranaki principal has been shocked to find how many of his year 7 and 8 children (10 to 12-year-olds) were on social networking sites. An older boy had allegedly singled out a girl online. He had pretended to be a girl from her school.
- Lady Sawers, wife of the new MI6 boss in Britain, posted on her social networking site photographs of her and her husband, their contacts and their home, causing a major security worry.
- In a recent case near Christchurch, a predator befriended hundreds of girls with what seemed harmless conversations and after weeks, sometimes months he would move to more sexual conversations and ask for body measurements. He coaxed photographs, sometimes naked, and in return sent photographs of his genitalia.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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I like facebook - it's a great way to catch up with friends and family, share pics, join groups and keep updated. Too many haters posting comments here. Privacy is important and it is stink google picks up private pages. Still, fb reminds me of the old friendship books that used to go around class. Think some people are way to sensitive.
"Facebook is an tacky, time wasting site for insecure people with nothing better to do than try and portray their lives in a certain way to appear successful to their peers."
Haha, someone is VERY intimidated by the sounds of your comment, how sad.
Facebook is great BUT it is up to the user to know the privacy settings and what to put up/not put up. You can't cure stupid and of course there will be cases of privacy intrusions, identity theft etc because some users are very careless when on a site like Facebook.
I use Facebook a lot to keep in touch with friends overseas, see what they are up to, chat (or Skype) and know exactly what others/non-friends can see because I have mastered the privacy settings/features. Time for some of you technophobes to step your game up or just stick to being a dinosaur...but don't hate something just because you are intimidated by it.
Jim, Google your name, and you will be surprised how easy someone could steal your identity! I have nothing to hide. But I don't want my identity stolen either. Even so called secure sites can easily be got around by "cashed" pages. Just like "H" the first post said, it's so easy to "stalk" someone on the internet by knowing their name. Try it, you might be shocked at what someone who only knows your name can find out about you!
Realist #5 08:38 am May 03 2010
What are you up to man why do you have so much to hide? Im concerned about what your potentially doing
I had to knock myself off facebook because my partner said google yourself and lo and behold, there I was with all my friends exposed even though I said private. No wonder all the emails with viagra and enlarge my ykw are arriving frequently.
Facebook is an tacky, time wasting site for insecure people with nothing better to do than try and portray their lives in a certain way to appear successful to their peers. I laugh in the face of anyone who uses it.
just make your page PRIVATE. I have a few lists one for only close friends and family they can see family pics and everything else, friends who can just see a few photos and randoms (uno the people who you havent seen since primary years)they get one picture.
dont worry facebook is about as cool as snowboarding at the olympics. its days of being exciting and new will only last so long. everyone will get bored and delete it, just like all those other sites before it.
But...but I thought if you have nothing to hide then there's nothing to be concerned about? ;-) Funny how many people during the Bush &Co years went around saying that.
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well,I'm an expat of many years standing,and courtesy of my folk's sending me 'Stuff.NZ',avery so often,i find myself a bit embarrassed by some of my countrymen's excessive sense of their own importance-what the heck do any of you have to say about yourselves that's so amazing as to merit this level of paranoia? Come on-we all know we've been living in a global police state not far removed from anything written by Zamiatan or Orwell for AGES.The folks who've said the following are bang on the nail:if you dont want people knowing about it-dont write it large in cyberspace for the world to see.End Of.For what it's worth,Twitter and thelike are a complete joke-the vyber-equivalent of "reality TV" and all this "celebrity" garbage that's been flooding television for years.