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January 28, 2009 was the second annual Data Privacy Day, an event celebrated by the United States, Canada, and 27 European countries. Data Privacy Day was started to raise awareness and generate discussion about data privacy practices and rights, especially among teenagers. According to a recent study by Intel, “Over 55 percent of online American teens between 12 and 17 use social networks, and older teens are even more likely to have profiles.” As part of this day, privacy professionals, corporations and government officials distribute educational materials and hold events around the issue of data privacy. As I read through some of these materials, this particular pointer struck a chord with me:

“It isn’t all about Common Sense: Once you put information or photographs out there in the digital world, they can be forwarded, archived, and stored in browsers and search engines, making it difficult if not impossible to take them back.”

Nowadays, it’s not only teenagers who occupy themselves with social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. These sites, including LinkedIn, are becoming increasingly popular among working professionals as well. And large corporations are coming on board. With these social sites making their way into the work place, now, more than ever, we need to be conscientious about the type of information we put out on the internet, next to our names. But sometimes, it’s not even what we put up online, rather what others tag of us that we need to be weary of.

Recently, John Favreau, Barack Obama’s speechwriter had a couple of drinks with friends at a closed-door party and got juvenile with a Hilary Clinton cardboard cut-out. But private parties are no longer all that private as long as someone in the crowd has a Facebook account and a camera in tow. You can probably guess what happened next; pictures of Favreau and the Hilary Clinton cut-out were plastered all over the internet.

Did this incident dispatch Favreau to the world of mediocre speechwriters? Clearly not; people around the world listened to and loved Obama’s inaugural speech. However, did the incident, even though it happened “off the clock,” call to question his legitimacy as a professional? I think YES! Would you agree?

Tags: facebook, online profile

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 10:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.