Computer Weekly has posted a summary of ENISA‘s 17 most significant threats and remedies to privacy in the world of social sites.
The European Network and Information Security Agency (Enisa) has detailed 17 significant threats to the privacy of users of social networking sites (SNSs). It has also suggested some remedies.
This is what it said in a position paper published today:
Potential problems
1.1 Digital dossier aggregation: profiles on online SNSs can be downloaded and stored by third parties, creating a digital dossier of personal data.
1.2 Secondary data collection: as well as data knowingly disclosed in a profile, SN members disclose personal information using the network itself: e.g. length of connections, other users’ profiles visited and messages sent. SNSs provide a central repository accessible to a single provider. The high value of SNSs suggests that such data is being used to considerable financial gain.
1.3 Face recognition: user-provided digital images are a very popular part of profiles on SNSs. The photograph is, in effect, a binary identifier for the user, enabling linking across profiles, e.g. a fully identified Bebo profile and a pseudo-anonymous dating profile.
1.4 CBIR: Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR) is an emerging technology which can match features, such as identifying aspects of a room (e.g. a painting) in very large databases, increasing the possibilities for locating users.
1.5 Linkability from image metadata: many SNSs now allow users to tag images with metadata, such as links to SNS profiles (even if they are not the owner/controller of that profile), or even e-mail addresses. This leads to greater possibilities for unwanted linkage to personal data.
For the rest of the list read on.
[tags]Social Networking Threats, Web 2.0 Security, Social Site Security, Privacy[/tags]
