Facebook has announced plans to improve user’s control over their information and allow them to make better choices about their privacy.

The new improvements will include new notifications, additions to Facebook’s Privacy Policy, and technical changes aimed at giving people more transparency and control over the information they provide to third-party applications.

The changes came about after Facebook worked with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, which spent a year reviewing the social networks privacy polices. The Commissioner made a number of recommendations, which Facebook plans to implement over the next year.

“Our productive and constructive dialogue with the Commissioner’s office has given us an opportunity to improve our policies and practices in a way that will provide even greater transparency and control for Facebook users,” said Elliot Schrage, Vice-President of Global Communications and Public Policy at Facebook.

“We believe that these changes are not only great for our users and address all of the Commissioners’ outstanding concerns, but they also set a new standard for the industry.”

Specific changes Facebook will be making:

· Updating the Privacy Policy to better describe a number of practices, including the reasons for the collection of date of birth, account memorialization for deceased users, the distinction between account deactivation and deletion, and how its advertising programs work.

· Encouraging users to review their privacy settings to make sure the defaults and selections reflect the user’s preferences.

· Increasing the understanding and control a user has over the information accessed by third-party applications. Specifically, Facebook will introduce a new permissions model that will require applications to specify the categories of information they wish to access and obtain express consent from the user before any data is shared. In addition, the user will also have to specifically approve any access to their friends’ information, which would still be subject to the friend’s privacy and application settings.

Posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 12:23 pm. Permalink