PCPD Study: Social media users should be wary of privacy policies and settings

Th top 10 most popular social media platforms in Hong Kong collect up to 19 types of personal data, while some of them disclose users’ personal data such as age, location, email address or telephone number by default, according to a study conducted by the office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD).

In its recent report “Comparison of Privacy Settings of Social Media”, the PCPD said studied the top ten most commonly used social media platforms in Hong Kong, including Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, LINE, LinkedIn, Skype, Twitter, WeChat, WhatsApp and YouTube about their privacy functions, privacy policies and the usability of privacy dashboards. Although all of them have privacy policy, these platforms collect up to 19 types of personal data, with every one of them collecting users’ location data including both the precise and coarse locations.

Speaking of privacy policies, Twitter, WeChat and YouTube receive the highest scores for readability, while the others that do not score full marks mainly lack infographics, tables or short videos in illustrating their privacy policies. However, Twitter is the only social media platform that does not provide its privacy policy in Chinese text.

In terms of the default privacy settings, the age and telephone number of a user are not disclosed by Skype and YouTube, while the other social media disclose users’ personal data such as age, location, email address or telephone number by default.

The report studied a total of five instant messaging apps. Apart from WeChat, Facebook Messenger, LINE, Skype and WhatsApp deploy end-to-end encryption in the transmission of messages between users, although LINE does not provide two-factor authentication.

Users of social media are also notified by the platform that users’ personal data would be transferred to their affiliated companies, and most of the social media would retain users’ credit card data. Moreover, Facebook, LINE, WeChat and YouTube all allow users to disseminate posts to specific individuals or groups, and modify the privacy settings of the content after posting.

"We should not neglect the risks posed to personal data privacy arising from the use of social media. Such risks may include the abuse of personal data, data scrapping or data leakage.  Personal data which is openly available may also be used by others for the purposes of doxxing, cyberbullying, phishing, or other illegal activities, leading to property loss and even physical or psychological harm of the victims," said Ada Chung, The Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data.

To better protect their privacy, the PCPD advised users of social media to read the privacy policy of the social media carefully, open an email account dedicated for social media and only provide the required personal data, and check the default settings on security or privacy of the social media. They are also advised to check the ways through which individual users may be searched on the media, with a view to minimising the disclosure of personal data and opting for the most privacy-protecting setting.

Additionally, users can turn off the location tracking function to avoid the collection of location data by the social media and pay attention to the privacy options of content posted and select the appropriate settings before posting the content. Before choosing any instant messaging application, users need to pay attention to whether it provides end-to-end encryption forms of transmission to strengthen the confidentiality of transmitted data. They can also use strong passwords and enable two-factor authentication for social media to strengthen account security.

Lastly, to minimise the risk of credit card data leak, users need to avoid transactions on social media platforms over public Wi-Fi or unsecured Wi-Fi connections.

Chung added, "I call for greater vigilance and smart use of social media when users surf or communicate online to reduce the risks posed to personal data privacy.”

Hongkongers have been using social media for many years and the adoption of social platforms has no signs to stop. According to The Digital 2022 report conducted by We are Social and Hootsuite, Hong Kong had 6.68 million of social media users last year, equivalent to 88.1% of the city's population. The number of social media users increased by 3.7% year-on-year. Moreover, 99.7% of the entire population aged over 13 used social media too. The majority of Internet users (94.8%) used social media as well.

Social media platforms were crucial to brand research among Hongkongers with 69.4% of respondents in Hong Kong aged from 16 to 64 stating that they used social media to conduct brand research. Around 39.8% and 23.5% of them went for social networks and forums or message boards for information about brands respectively.

(Photo courtesy: 123rf)

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