Hmmmm....how do I start about privacy?

I'm the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to living a private life. I'm so *blah* to the world that sometimes I even scare myself. Hello human! So, when people approach me about privacy concerns, I can't relate. Or maybe I can empathize, but I feel like part of being 'out there' protects me more than being really private...

But this post isn't an argument for or against privacy. Everyone has the right to their privacy.

This is a post about Riya and how we deal with privacy issues. OK...so what's the issue?

1. Email addresses
   
   Yep. I've dealt with that here. Kind of. Basically, face recognition is really big technology. HUGE. We are attempting something that hasn't been done and because face detection is so touchy, we require more than just a name to create a solid digital signature. So, email, being very unique, seemed to work. K, well there is a better solution, but nobody else has totally solved the identity thing, so...the photosearch thing is our first priority. We're still very open to suggestions.
   
   But the bigger issue here is 'What the hell are you guys gonna do with those addresses?' Um. Nothing. I don't even know what to do with the crazy # of alpha requests I have sitting in my inbox. We're certainly not in the spamming business. We have no plans to farm those addresses and sell them to the spammers. Plus, since I've put many bogus addresses in those fields in my
   tagging process, I can imagine others will. The list wouldn't be worth much.
   
   And...once you enter the email address of a person, yes, people can search for that person by typing in an email address. Okay...so that would be scary if you had a stalker...I'll address stalkers below.
   
   
2. Someone else tagging photos of you in a public search
   
   Hmmmm...okay...there are 3 levels of privacy for each photo: a. Public, b. Only People in Photo (identified by...erm...email login), c. Totally Private. If there are photos of you in the public search you don't want people to see, ask the photographer to make them private. We will also allow the 'People in the Photo' to change this setting in the future as well. So, if the photographer refuses to change the settings, you can do it. Now, yes, he/she could change it back, but that wouldn't be very nice.
   
   
3. Stalkers
   
   Well, maybe I'm not stalker material, but I'm really, really stalkable and it hasn't happened to date. But for those who ARE stalker material, and don't have any photos online, accounts on plazes, 43 things, a blog, etc., I can totally see this being a concern. If you are private, you are private.
   
   How do we deal with this? Erm...we don't. I really want to say that we set up a huge security thingy and protect every person from being stalked online, but I can't say that. But here's the thing: Riya is not the first and will certainly not be the last company that exposes this risk. I certainly don't want to sound flippant about stalkers. All I know is that if I was truly concerned about stalkers, I would not live my life online.
   

Okay, so maybe I haven't put out any fires in this area...maybe even I've made it worse. Raised a flag. Something like that. I certainly don't want to dismiss any concerns anyone has. But the less politically correct version of myself (as well as the overly trusting Canadian version) wonders if there is a HUGE concern after all.

I think of it like this...as more and more people go online and expose various intimate details of their lives, the targets increase. All of a sudden there is all this information available for so many people that, if you are a spy or a stalker or a government organization looking to watch for dissidents, it becomes unmanageable. Isn't there a war strategy like this? Or Chaos Theory? Or whatever.

Either way, we are a free photo search. We've been working really hard to build towards something (hopefully someday) very very useful for people who want to use it. Many of us tirelessly. We don't ask for your credit card #, your SSN, your first born...whatever. We suggest that you enter a few email addresses to make the engine work better. And, yes, we are SO working on this issue. Nothing is as simple as it seems.

K...so...solution? Don't have it. Privacy? We give options and, no, it isn't perfect. Erm, what exactly was I trying to communicate here? We hear ya, but we don't have an answer.

[ha! the PR people are totally cringing right now...I can hear the hair stand up on the backs of their necks]

I dunno. Support this or blast this in the comment section. Or, maybe you have some really great suggestions. Bring it on...;)

technorati tags: privacy, riya