Social networks

EU will protect your 4am party shame

Published on 17 March 2011 at 10:03

“EU to force social network sites to enhance privacy,” headlines the Guardian, after justice commissioner Viviane Reding, in a speech to the European parliament, announced she would enshrine a "right to be forgotten online” for internet users. In a series of proposals to be announced before the summer, Reding intends to force Facebook and other social networking sites to make high standards of data privacy the default setting and give control over data back to the user. According to Reding’s staff, current privacy settings on Facebook are “too complex” for typical users. The new set of rules, making sure privacy is “inbuilt” will ensure, the London daily quips, “that, among other things, prospective employers cannot find old Facebook party photos of someone wearing nothing but a lampshade.”

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