FACEBOOK DATA IS GREATER THAN SUM OF YOUR LIKES (2ND BIMESTER)

More Privacy Perils: Facebook Data Is Greater Than The Sum Of Your Likes

URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/03/12/more-privacy-perils-facebook-data-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-your-likes.

An app was developed by a research group of the University of Cambridge that is able to “stereotype” Facebook user based on their information and their different likes.

The IT system in this case is the app, which is called MyPersonality. The app works with an algorithm that tells you what kind of person you are -homosexual, nerd, sports person- by looking at your information and your likes on Facebook. Because of this type of performance, it affects all the Facebook users that use the app, because they are the ones that will have their privacy compromised, since the app will maybe know things about them nobody else knows.

The app has an impact on the ´privacy of the main stakeholder involve. The people that use this app may give the database information about them that nobody knows –not even them-.

Also, this has a legal impact and also a small psychological impact. It is illegal to affect the privacy of the people, since it is their right to have it. The psychological impact will go to the people who maybe are influenced by the results that the app shows, changing their way of living and the way they think.

In conclusion, these impacts are serious and they can have a huge effect on the way people think or behave. Also, this IT system shows discrimination, since it tells that you may be homosexual because you watch a specific show or like a specific page.

People should be careful on what applications they use and what information they give away, because they might learn something about themselves they don’t want to.