FeatureUC&C30 Apr 2018 · 5 min read

Privacy: Do we Even Care about Facebook?

As of 20th April 2018, Slack confirmed that employers can now read the private messages of their employees - is privacy a concern for staff at work or us at home?

Dominic Kent

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 12 months, GDPR is coming. Some companies are worried because they haven’t done enough. Some companies are worried because they haven’t done anything. And some companies are completely oblivious and have no fear.

This doesn’t cover everyone, of course. "GDPR Officer" is now a job title and enterprises are taking this seriously. Vigorous processes and procedures have appeared over the last year in readiness for this new regulation of protecting the consumer – or the consumer’s data, more specifically.

But the burning question is - do we even care?

SPAM

Sure, the idea of not receiving junk email appeals to everybody. However, think of the genuine junk emails you receive and whether the likes of those are going to be stringent in adhering to GDPR. The likelihood is this is a near untraceable bot linking lots of databases together. It then legally feeds back the unsuspecting victim's details when they finally get a click or a reply.

Unsolicited cold calls will decrease by 500%. Yes, this is probably correct if you use the right parameters. Think about when you see a phone number that you don’t recognise. You tactically ignore it then give it a sneaky call back to see if it’s automated and actually junk. You call back, just in case it’s that dream job or that client that you didn’t think was going to sign. However, it’s almost always:

“You have been called today by the waffle and waste of time service”.

The likelihood of these types of calls stopping due to GDPR is almost nil too. As much as they aren’t deregulated, they hardly play by the rules.

Privacy

GDPR Bridewell Maximizer So, how is GDPR going to protect the consumer?

The official EUGDPR website suggests that GDPR was designed to harmonise data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizens data privacy and to reshape the way organisations across the region approach data privacy.

As EU citizens, do we feel empowered? Absolutely not. As EU citizens, do we even care? Absolutely not.

As unfortunate as the state is, EU citizens have become so used to companies receiving our data that we no longer think twice. You can sign into most apps on your smartphone using Facebook. You can even do this with face recognition so the chance of reading what you are agreeing to is slimmer than ever.

Facebook

Facebook is a classic example of consumer trust. The brand and platform has grown to such heights that the consumer fully trusts Facebook. According to Statista, as of the fourth quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.2 billion monthly active users.

Because of this scale, consumers are comfortable clicking this and that, looking for the quickest route to download or sign up to whatever it is they desire. Surely, a company as big as Facebook can’t be doing anything with our data. The reality is we don’t know. Sure, there is speculation and concern, but will we ever know what our data is being used for?

Terms and Conditions

The same can be said for agreeing to terms and conditions. Unless you’re a law professional, when was the last time you read all the terms and conditions? Think about it, your phone pings and you have an iOS update. You have literally no idea what you’ve just agreed to. All you know is that the bug has finally been fixed and you can’t wait to use the new animojis.

Big Brother

Apple Logo As consumers, we trust big conglomerates like Facebook and Apple. So, how about in the workplace?

When you go to work, do you expect your instant messages with your colleagues to be read? This is your data after all. There is an argument that it is not your data because it belongs to your employer. They are paying you to work and paying for the software you are using. Does that remove the right for it to be private?

As of 20^th April 2018, Slack confirmed that employers can now read the private messages of their employees. Whilst Slack isn’t quite on the scale of Facebook and Apple, it does boast over six million daily active users. That’s a lot of private messages that just become employer information.

Twenty years ago, you could hear the disgruntled employees worried their private conversations are being leaked now. But, if this is readily available to Facebook, why wouldn’t Slack have this information too? This probably isn’t the last we hear about Slack’s generosity to employers but, for now, they haven’t broken any laws and staff thought it was happening anyway.

Memorable Information

When you phone a contact centre – your broadband is down, you need to arrange a return or would like to buy something from the catalogue – you must take a quiz all about your life. Sometimes, it’s pretty hard. Can you ever remember that memorable number? No, because it’s not all that memorable as you cannot use your date of birth or even anything catchy.

However, consumers are ever so comfortable providing this sensitive, personal data to Contact Centre Joe who has answered your call. And get this, the recorded message even tells you the calls are recorded so that information is being stored. The point here is that consumers fully expect you to already have this information and you are only confirming what Contact Centre Joe already knows.

As consumers, and even businesses, we would love an EU regulation like GDPR to be introduced to protect our personal data. However, as consumers, and even businesses, we are all too clued up about the data stored, leaked and made publicly available by various organisations.

Consumers are no longer wary about providing personal information to an 18-year-old contact centre worker, staff suspect their private messages are being read at work and we don’t really care about Facebook.

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