Personal data - is it really personal?

Living in today's world, most people have, in some way, communicated where they are or what they are doing. This could be in terms of your facebook status, sms or perhaps an update on twitter, telling your friends and "followers" where you are and/or what you are doing at all times. Is this neccessary? Is this a sign of our need for privacy is increasing? And even more importantly - can this be harming in any way?

Even though the right to privacy is highly developed area in Europe, this is not always followed and respected. Alongside the pleasures and positive aspects of relatively new medias (such as facebook, twitter and so on), some negative effects also occurs. Let us consentrate on facebook. One of the most popular applications on your homepage is publishing photographs. It is also possible for others to publish photographs of you, and unless they do not "tag" you, you will not notice this unless they are your friends on facebook. In other words - if you are at a party where there are strangers carrying a camera, chances are that you will 1. be photographed by someone you o not know 2. have a perhaps unflattering photo of yourself on facebook without you being able to stop it. If this happens, it is a clear vialation of the 8th article of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence". This is of course unfortunate, consirdering most employers usually have a backgroud check on their future workers. If you are hoping to get a job as a teacher, and there are pictures of you influenced by alcohol availible on the Internet, you are unlikely to get a job.

It is one thing to have a couple of bad pictures on the Internet, another thing is to have personal data being published online. Personal data could be defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable human being, such as criminal record, address, bank statements etc. . In other words - personal data is information which can be linked to you as a human being, and can in some cases identify who you are.

 

So what do you do? Do you keep all your personal information to yourself, including never publishing anything on facebook, or is it possible to regulate your privacy by only publishing things that are appropiate?