London: With tech-savvy employers prying to social networking sites to know more about their staff's personal lives, the employees are virtually putting their
right to privacy at risk, warns a computer expert.
Users of social networking sites like Facebook and
Twitter post their views, messages, photos and other personal
details on these forums, that can be easily accessed by their
employers, thus risking their privacy, the expert opined.
"Users of new media, in their self-disclosure, are often
as complicit in assaults on our privacy as the authorities
which orchestrate surveillance," Kieron O'Hara of University
of Southampton said at the annual conference of the Media,
Communication and Cultural Studies Association.
A 16-year-old girl from Essex was last year sacked from
her job as an office administrator after she updated about how
boring the work was on her social networking account.
Employees from large companies like Marks and Spencer,
and British Airways have been caught out posting rude comments
about their customers on Facebook, The Telegraph reported.
Another expert on new media said sharing intimate details
on the sites could also damage personal relationships.
"As new technology and social media encourage sharing of
the small details of everyday life, it also reduces privacy in
social relationships and may have negative effects on intimacy
levels between people," said Adam Joinson of the University of
Bath, an expert in computer communication.
"If you desire intimacy, it may well be disastrous to add
your partner to Facebook, or to follow them on Twitter," he
added.
PTI
First Published: Friday, January 08, 2010, 21:51