Any conversation about identity leads to a conversation about privacy. Identity by its nature is a very personal topic, and people are concerned about who can see what about them. In the past, the high friction in moving information provided some privacy protection. Now, as more of our identity becomes digital and the friction in moving it around has dropped dramatically, the risk of privacy issues has subsequently increased.

Facebook is an iconic example of the intersection of identity and privacy. There are internal and external applications that enable the user to easily share an unprecedented variety of information about themselves., with the brand promise that the the user is able to control who can see what information about them.

Some of you may be familiar with the privacy problem I had with Facebook last spring. (no, I’m not going to provide a link to it, since I would prefer it just went away – so please don’t go looking for it!) Although there was a basis to start a legal action, I prefer solving problems rather than complain about them. I had a productive conversation with the team on Facebook, a company that takes privacy very seriously. I provided them with feedback on how to improve some of their processes, and they asked me to review their new Privacy Policy, which was just published today.

The new policy makes it more clear what will happen when, and directs the reader to where they can make adjustments if they prefer settings other then the defaults.

Tagsfacebook identity privacy