No matter how big a website maybe, but when it comes to security and privacy of an individual online, one usually does not feel safe enough. Another big concern of the website visitors is if they are being tracked. Nobody likes to have a watchdog over their head scanning each and every word they type and say. And if you thought you could be totally anonymous over the internet, its time you wake up. Everything you do over the internet is recorded, any move you make, any click you do, everything is logged on the servers. I am not trying to scare you or trying to stop you from using internet, but I felt that you should be aware.
Coming to the topic, a recent report indicates that Facebook monitors every word you type on the site. The engineers at Facebook have employed an intelligent system that scans each and every message you send and receive to find if something is amiss like exchanging certain numbers like credit cards and bank accounts or critical personal information. If the system finds anything harmful it sends the details to the Facebook security employees who then check it and inform the police if needed. The program scans the interactions between people who are not already well connected and established in a more critical way than others. Although the system is aimed at catching suspicious elements, but you cannot deny the fact that, it does fiddles with our privacy.
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Honestly, Facebook has faced a lot of criticism when it comes to user privacy and safety in the past. Most of the time, Facebook has came across strong while at others, it has failed to impress the people. Commenting on this report, Facebook said “We’ve never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it’s really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate.” In contrast to the earlier security measures taken by Facebook, this one has gone a step further by involving the Facebook Employees directly in ‘personal’ communications. This said, the new system has helped the cops to get hold of a child predator recently which convinces us of its usefulness. Although the software system makes sure that minimum intervention is needed on the FB employee’s part, but we are still unaware of how long these chat logs are saved on the FB servers.
Just like a coin, the latest update has 2 faces. One of which shows us that our privacy is being breached, while other shows us how this is useful and helpful to make our world better. Facebook has always helped the law enforcement agencies by furnishing information on accused people when needed. Is the current update aimed at the same thing? What is your opinion?
