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In Australia, Even Private Facebook Photos Are Public

Posted by timothy on from the all-nimbly-pimbly dept.

littlekorea writes "Australia's telecommunications regulator has ruled that one of the country's largest broadcasters, Channel 7, did not breach the industry code of conduct by lifting photos of deceased persons and minors from social networking site Facebook. Significantly, the regulator noted that it doesn't have the legal authority to crack down on broadcasters that lift material tagged as 'private,' looking to the Attorney General to provide some legal clarity."

7 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing to hide – nothing to see here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it that in Australia we just seem to be 18 months behind the rest of the world?
    The UK has had the News of the World scandal; however, we are still in the "Nothing to hide" movement of several years back:

    A recent article on this topic is at http://www.1place.com.au/1P/blog1p/?p=2269

    The problem with “nothing to hide” surveillance or intrusions into privacy is, that if such an approach is left to dominate without regulation, then our secrets will diminish. Secrets give rise to disruptive thought in areas such as in technology contributes to help society evolve. Privacy and confidentiality are areas of law that help ideas develop into disruptive technology.

  2. Makes sense. by CarboRobo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A "private" tag doesn't magically make a public item private.

    1. Re:Makes sense. by one+cup+of+coffee · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A "private" tag doesn't magically make a public item private.

      Then what's the point of calling it private? It's misleading to do so isn't it? Also, the very nature of social networks operate on the basis of filtering, without which there's no point in having "friends" or groups etc, it would just be a giant cluster-fuck like the wild west days of the early internet which to some degree is why people flocked to social networks in the first place. I'm not saying it isn't a giant cluster-fuck on FB either btw, but just because a lot of people are ignorant about how the internet works, doesn't mean that they deserve to have their children or deceased family members images trawled and publicly monetized by multi-billion dollar corporations. Yes, I realize that's exactly what FB, Google, et. all are doing, but at least they do it privately, and supposedly anonymously, that's what makes them tolerable. After all, you can't escape unless you basically shun society as a whole, because even if you don't have a FB account, someone at sometime will take your photo and tag you online without your permission. Please tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm arguing that there has to be protections. That is the purpose of governments anyways, to provide protections for its members the citizens. I think the Australian government failed on this one.

  3. How ingenuous! by aglider · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do you really think that once you put something private online it will be private forever?
    Privacy is a process, not a product or, worse, a tag on a file.
    Do you want to keep your "digital life" private?
    Forget about putting it online.

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
  4. Good Grief... Not again... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Again, folks, nothing you post on Facebook is private. Nothing. Seriously, there are simply ***NO*** privacy issues with Facebook, because nothing on Facebook is private.

    The rule is simple: If you want to maintain privacy, don't post your "private" material on Facebook or any other "social networking" web site.

     

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Good Grief... Not again... by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's not nearly enough, unfortunately. My Facebook profile is next to nothing, it exists only so I can respond to event invites because it's become the de facto way of doing it and in some way I can understand that people go "Why can't you stop being such a special snowflake so I can have my guest list in one place?" and isolated speaking, no I don't really care that anyone knows I was there. But as a free bonus I also got tagged in pictures from the party by some less than privacy sensitive people, which I don't need. I didn't upload those pictures, I didn't tag them and honestly I wish there was a "do not tag" flag I could set where nobody could tag me in any way without approval. Then again I turned my sharing settings down to the minimum, though I'm not sure it actually helps when I'm not the one doing the sharing. Sigh.....

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Good Grief... Not again... by Pharmboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Stop getting drunk. Your brain cells will thank you.

      Stop telling others how to live. It isn't your concern.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!