Should Facebook issue 'health warnings' about how it uses our data?

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Should Facebook issue 'health warnings' about how it uses our data?

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Social media firms such as Facebook and Twitter should be forced to display 'health warnings' detailing how they use people's personal data, a group of MPs has demanded.

The Commons Science and Technology Committee has warned that users need a law degree to understand the terms and conditions used by most companies.

Millions of people sign away control of their private information and pictures because they do not understand how they might be used, the committee added.

Social media firms such as Facebook and Twitter should be forced to display 'health warnings' detailing how they use people's personal data, a group of MPs has demanded

It calls for social media groups to display much simplified notices on their websites - comparing them to the health warnings on cigarette packets.

Andrew Miller MP, the committee's chairman, said the terms and conditions that users agree to are indecipherable.

He said nobody really knows how their information is used - because nobody can understand the documents.

The problem, he said, is that they are designed for civil cases in US courts, not normal people.

'Let's face it, most people click yes to terms and conditions contracts without reading them, because they are often laughably long and written in the kind of legalese you need a law degree from the USA to understand,' he said.

The information we put online can be invaluable to advertisers, enabling them to target their desired market more accurately than ever before.

The GPS trackers on our phones track our movements and the videos and photographs we take give a window into our private worlds.

Facebook's guide to managing your content online

Facebook last night said it had recently simplified its terms and conditions. In submissions to the committee in August, Facebook insisted it took data protection seriously

Under data protection laws the companies have to obtain our 'informed consent' before using this information.

But MPs fear that we are not truly 'informed' when we click a button to give our consent – because we do not understand the rules.

The way technology companies use our data is unclear and the committee wants the government to draw up new laws to bind them to a code of conduct.

That would involve telling users exactly how their data might be used - in very simple and concise terms - before they sign up to use a service.

FACEBOOK COMES UNDER FIRE

The committee highlighted terms for Facebook Messenger's mobile app, used by more than 200,000 million people a month that means it can gain direct access to a mobile or tablet.

This means it can take pictures or make videos, at any time without explicit confirmation from the owner.

MPs also pointed to criticism of the company earlier this year after it carried out a psychological experiment that recorded users' moods as news feeds on the social network were manipulated.

Andrew Miller, who chairs the science and technology committee, said: 'Facebook's experiment with users' emotions highlighted serious concerns about the extent to which, ticking the terms and conditions box, can be said to constitute informed consent when it comes to the varied ways data is now being used by many websites and apps.'

The report says: 'Clear communication with the public has been achieved in the past, for example in the use of graphic health warnings on cigarette packets.

'Effective communication with the public can be achieved again.'

It adds: 'Millions of individuals from across the globe have signed up to social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and this phenomena has led to vast collections of personal data.

'We have not been convinced that the users of social media platforms are fully aware of how their data might be used and what redress they may, or may not have if they disagree with how an organisation exploits that data.

'This is exacerbated by our finding that terms and conditions contracts are simply too long and complex for any reasonable person to make any real sense of. Reading such documents has been likened to engaging with 'Shakespeare'.

'Drafted by lawyers, to be used in American court rooms, the contents of terms and conditions have been designed to protect organisations in the event of legal action.

'As a mechanism for showing that users have provided informed consent, so that organisations can process incredibly persona data, terms and conditions contracts are simply not fit for purpose.'

The MPs are also critical of the government's own record on data protection.

They cite the disastrous NHS plan to harvest patients' medical data to improve services - a programme that has been delayed over privacy fears.

The committee demands that the Government gets its own house in order and improves data transparency, before it can turn its attention to pushing through a new set of guidelines for social media firms.

Andrew Miller MP, the committee's chairman, said the terms and conditions that users agree to are indecipherable. He said nobody really knows how their information is used - because nobody can understand the documents. Twitter, however, said its privacy policy was just four pages and 2,000 words in length

Mr Miller said: 'Socially responsible companies wouldn't want to bamboozle their users, of course, so we are sure most social media developers will be happy to sign up to the new guidelines on clear communication and informed consent that we are asking the Government to draw up.

'I hope that a voluntary system of guidelines can work, because, if not, legislation might be needed.'

Facebook last night said it had recently simplified its terms and conditions.

In submissions to the committee in August, Facebook insisted it took data protection seriously.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS FRAUGHT WITH BIAS, WARNS EXPERT

Using social media such as Twitter for behavioural studies is cheap and fast - but fraught with bias, warns a new study.

The rise of social media has been used by behavioural scientists to quickly and cheaply gather huge amounts of data about what people are thinking and doing.

However, computer scientists warn that such massive datasets may be misleading.

The findings, published in the journal Science, contend that scientists need to find ways of correcting for the biases inherent in the information gathered from Twitter and other social media, or to at least acknowledge the shortcomings of that data.

Doctor Juergen Pfeffer, an assistant research professor at Carnegie Mellon Univesity's Institute for Software Research, and Doctor Derek Ruths, an assistant professor of computer science at McGill Univesity, note that thousands of research papers every year are now based on data gleaned from social media, a source of data that barely existed just five years ago.

Dr Pfeffer said: 'Not everything that can be labelled as 'Big Data' is automatically great.'

He noted that many researchers think - or hope - that if they gather a large enough dataset they can overcome any biases or distortion that might lurk there.

Following the Boston Marathon bombing last year, for example, Dr Pfeffer collected 25 million related tweets in just two weeks.

He said: 'You get the behaviour of millions of people - for free.'

But, he said social media sites often have substantial population biases; generating the random samples that give surveys their power to accurately reflect attitudes and behaviour is problematic.

Instagram, for instance, has special appeal to adults between the ages of 18 and 29, African-Americans, Latinos, women and urban dwellers, while Pinterest is dominated by women between the ages of 25 and 34.

However, Dr Pfeffer said researchers seldom acknowledge, much less correct, these built-in sampling biases.

'We devote the necessary resources to ensure we meet our data protection obligations,' the firm wrote.

'This includes having a dedicated data protection team that brings together expertise from legal, policy, platform, law enforcement, security, engineering and community operations.'

Twitter said its privacy policy was just four pages and 2,000 words in length.

It added 'Twitter continually strives to ensure the right balance between providing adequate information whilst also ensuring it is approachable and user friendly.'

The LinkedIn Corporation said: 'Our members use LinkedIn because they trust it with their professional reputation.

'We recognise that this trust is earned by both respecting our members' privacy and properly protecting their personal information.'

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