Experts are unsure whether millions of Facebook accounts globally are private or public spaces.
“There’s no well defined legal answer,” said Professor Avner Levin, director of Ryerson University’s Privacy and Cyber Crime Institute.
Levin said that laws haven’t evolved fast enough to provide sufficient answers.
Avner Levin, head of Ryerson University’s Privacy and Cyber Crime Institute.
That’s why a Swiss bank fired a woman who called in sick when bosses discovered she was on Facebook instead of at work.
“The company says it followed a simple logic: that those who are well enough to use Facebook with a migraine are well enough to work with a migraine,” the BBC News reported.
Regulations policing social networks at universities also follow as society is unable to clearly say whether their Facebook profiles are private property.
Popular social networking site Facebook.
Some courts, Levin said, have ruled that once someone has as many 600 friends on Facebook, their profile becomes public domain.
However, Levin said, a user’s number of friends shouldn’t define whether their profile is public information. Rather, the way information is posted and the access users grant to others determines whether their profile is private or public.
“If you don’t restrict your privacy settings you might as well just write a blog,” Levin said.
