Would I lie to you?

Last week the head of internet security at the Cabinet Office, Andy Smith, was quoted as having said that users should give fake details to websites to protect their identity. Putting aside the fact that this violates sites such as Facebook’s usage policy, it demonstrates a lack of understanding about how these identities will evolve in the future and how social media functionality and privacy settings should be used to control misuse.

As social becomes more interwoven into our everyday lives, it starts to make sense to use real information in interactions. Most people don’t pretend to be someone else when they’re out on a Friday night meeting new people face to face, so why should it be any different online?

However, offline we are more careful with what information we tell people and question what we are told in return. It’s that instinct that needs to be developed when using social and that’s where privacy settings can help. As Actiance’s Chris Mannon says in Social Media Scammers – New Frontiers of Aggravation – The goal should be to make sure that your information is not accessible without your explicit knowledge.

Ironically for Andy Smith, the UK Government is soon to launch its ID Assurance scheme that enables people to interact with Government services using login from third parties, one of which is rumoured to be a social network as I mentioned in a recent blog post. Whether this will happen is yet to be seen, but it is expected that companies such as Paypal will sit alongside the Post Office and BT.

But using third parties does give people a choice as to who they trust with their identify and force those organisations that don’t come up to scratch or offer the right privacy settings out of the picture or to up their game.

What is required is an education programme in the same way that we were all advised to shred or burn personal information such as credit card bills that we no longer require to keep. Helping people understand the implications of different privacy settings and the best use of features such as Facebook’s lists and Google+’s circles, will do far more for everyone’s protection than fake identities.

Whilst one could argue that trusting Facebook et al with your date of birth and mobile phone number sounds alarming, when you consider the vast number of data loss and theft incidents incurred by the UK Government in the last year alone it doesn’t seem that bad.