Is Facebook the new Ministry of Information?

The Technology blog in the Guardian is running a story on Facebook announces Connect, to use your data on external sites. This comes just a few days after HEIs who are using Blackboard found out that they would be forced to block, rather than buy-into, a Facebook application that connects Blackboard to Facebook. I commented a while back about CourseFeed and its implications for data, security, privacy and pedagogy. At least that was a service that HEIs could buy-into. With this new app you have to be seen to buy out of it. If a student from HEI X tries to plug the app in s/he might get a DNS message, which might not look good. We have decided to opt out of the app whilst we test the building block for impact upon our data, security and network.

Now this isn't to state that the app or mash-ups of data from various sources is bad, per se. However, I now note that through Connect, Facebook is offering new ways for it to enhance the use of your data. As Jack Schofield notes in the Grud:

"Apart from anything else, it seems to imply that Facebook could become the central repository for identity on the web. And it's even worse than Microsoft's Passport, because Passport didn't care what name you used, and didn't drag your friends along too."

This reminds me of The Ministry of Information in Terry Gilliam's Kafka-esque Brazil, which presents a "dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines". I'm not saying that Facebook is lurching towards the control and manipulation of personal data, which is notionally owned by individuals but used by others, but I do wonder whether our staff and students need clarity of information in how their information can and is being used when they add that app or tick that "I agree" box.

EU funds project to pioneer privacy and identity management solutions in Web 2.0

The IBM Zurich Research Lab reports that the EU is funding a project, PrimeLife, to pioneer privacy and identity management solutions in Web 2.0. In particular I'm taken by the short-term aim of providing "scalable and configurable privacy and identity management in new and emerging Internet services and applications". Moreover, the longer-term goal is to protect the privacy of individuals throughout their entire life span. This is interesting given the range of virtual footprints and digital interactions that we leave and the storage capabilities and possible re-use of technological advancements - witness recent discussions about Phorm. The implications of linkages and build ups of digital traces have implications for our privacy, for marketing to us and of us, for our IPR and copyright, and for surveillance of us.

The Guardian; Report backs freer use of data

So the Government is embracing Web 2.0 thinking, with Gordon Brown Twittering and supporting more open use of data for mash-ups and repurposing, according to the Guardian's technology blog. An essential thread in the Web 2.0/read-write/social-learn discourse, you can check out the Free Our Data debate. The key strands are open and transparent re-purposing of information, but with an active rather than passive theme. Maybe this has an economic driver, but the aggregation and re-use of material has much promise for education.