German officials have been quick to protect citizens against possible invasions of privacy and identity theft . Last week they met with Facebook to demand policy change to its biometric function.

Facebook agreed to a voluntary code of conduct to protect its users’ data. The issue was over Facebook’s facial recognition function, which it has been using since December last year. The function catalogues the faces of users, making ‘tag’ suggestions automatically.

Technology commentators CIO published the story ‘Facebook bows to stricter German culture’:

“A few weeks ago, the State of Schleswig-Holstein had ordered all state sites to remove Facebook’s “like” button, and threatened to impose hefty fines on those that didn’t. It said Facebook builds profiles of users and non-users alike with the “like” button’s data, which violates German law.
And in early August the head of the German data protection authority asked Facebook to disable its facial recognition feature and argued that facial recognition amounts to unauthorized data collection on individuals.

“It’s obvious that this makes people very nervous when it comes to privacy,” said Carsten Casper, a Gartner privacy analyst, reports the BBC.

The code of conduct agreement was announced after Richard Allan, Facebook’s director of European public policy, met last week with Germany’s Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich in Berlin and a state parliamentary committee in Kiel, according to ZDNet.

“With Facebook’s willingness to sign up for this self-regulation … the debate over the extent to which German data protection law applies to Facebook has been considerably defused,” the Interior Ministry said, according to German news website The Local.

What is interesting, is that no other countries have found this function to be a threat to privacy. Or the framework of privacy laws in other countries may not exist to prevent its use.

Back in June there were concerns over the potential privacy dangers of the introduction of face recognition technology to Facebook. This comes from an article from The Wall Street Journal for The Australian:

The technology also raises concerns that Facebook has built a potentially sensitive database of its more than 600 million users based on their facial characteristics, even as other tech titans such as Google say they’ve stopped short of adding facial recognition to some of their services.

“Facebook users thought they were simply tagging their friends. Turns out Facebook was building an image profile database to automate online identification,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, a privacy group based in Washington.

In a statement, Facebook said it “should have been more clear with people during the roll-out process when this became available to them.”

Personal information is a valuable commodity these days. The Australian Crime Commission cites identity theft as the fastest growing crime in Australia and much of it is about profile building and data gathering in order to commit identity fraud against unknowing victims, often in other countries.

And it is ordinary people that are most at risk of identity theft and a subsequent bad credit rating. Commentator Stilgherrian recently shared these insights into identity theft:

Or, in the case of identity theft, when someone takes out $50,000 of loans in your name? That happens through the gradual accumulation of personal data. Your name and email address from a list stolen from a hacked website, cross-matched with your street address from another, your date of birth from a third, and so on.

These databases can contain millions of people’s details. They’re traded in shady online markets where people buy the pieces missing from the databases they already have, merge them, refine them, mark ‘em up and sell ‘em on until eventually there’s enough to turn it all into a credit application. It’s then laundered though “money mules”, people recruited in the belief they’re making money at home with just a computer.

Is facial recognition just the missing piece of the puzzle scammers need to completely annihilate their victims’ lives?

How to avoid identity theft

Public education can go a long way to lessening the instances of identity theft. The Government’s Stay Smart Online website recommends Australians follow these 8 top tips for increasing their resistance to identity fraud, and avoiding the loss to their bank balance and potentially their good credit rating:

1. Install and renew your security software and set it to scan regularly.
2. Turn on automatic updates on all your software, including
your operating system and other applications.
3. Think carefully before you click on links or attachments, particularly in emails and on social networking sites.
4. Regularly adjust your privacy settings on social networking sites.
5. Report or talk to someone about anything online that makes you feel uncomfortable or threatened – download the government’s Cybersafety Help Button.
6. Stop and think before you post any photos or financial or personal information about yourself, your friends or family.
7. Use strong passwords and change them at least twice a year.
8. Talk within your family about good online safety.

Where to go for help following identity theft

Sometimes unravelling the tangled ‘web’ of online identity fraud for the purposes of negotiating with creditors to restore someone’s good credit rating is a minefield that many individuals have neither the time nor the skill set for.

Credit repairers are more commonly involved in assisting people in cases of identity fraud due to a better knowledge of legislation and ability to work within it when negotiating with creditors over the victim’s financial future and to clear their credit file.

For more information on identity theft and help with clearing your credit file, contact MyCRA Credit Repairs or call tollfree 1300 667 218.

Image: Salvatore Vuono/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net