And it will be extremely difficult to erase

With 300 million users around the world who are exchanged every day 285 million messages, photos or videos, Facebook is a mini-Internet to him alone. However, since a few months, the privacy problems is is mounting. In the United States, two students of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), near Boston, have managed to predict the sexual orientation of a thousand young men, alone by consulting their friend s Facebook networks. To the South, in Dallas, a professor at the University of Texas analyzed 167.000 people Facebook profiles to determine their political opinions.

Very concerned by the ease with which many young people reveal parts whole privacy on social networks (Facebook, Myspace...), blogs, or albums of photos online (Flickr, Picasa...), intellectuals, academics and politicians has reignited the debate on the respect for private life.

The problem of personal data

"The trigger of our thinking has been the development of social networks, confirms Yves Détraigne, Senator and co-author with Senator Anne-Marie Escoffier of a report entitled"Privacy at the time of the digital memories". We begin to see young people who are trapped by these networks. "Thus, young French graduates would have missed a job because of Facebook: in preparing for job interviews, their potentiels patterns would have fallen on compromising, photos during a little too watered and published on this site.

Protection of data of the digital lifestyle is also at the heart of two other recent publications: "Traceability and networks" number of the journal "Hermes", published by the CNRS, and the book "The identity in the digital age" (Dalloz), written by Guillaume Desgens-Pasanau, head of the Department of Legal Affairs of the CNIL (Commission nationale of computing and freedoms), and by Eric FreyssinetLieutenant-Colonel of gendarmerie. "Seen more in addition to issues around personal data: it is a major company, bounces Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet.". 43 of us recruiters report dismissed a record after found on the Internet of information on the candidates. "The Secretary of State to the Prospective and development of the digital economy brings key players in the Web today to discuss the traces we leave, voluntarily or involuntarily, on the Internet. A theme that she hopes also addressed at the next Forum on governance of the Internet, from 15 to 18 November in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt.

The future looks even more dangerous to our personal data. "Today, four types of information circulate on us: questionnaires online that we fill the data we publish ourselves on blogs or social networks, information on us that our friends and neighbors spread, and, finally, our footsteps of connection", recalled Olivier Iteanu, lawyer, law applied to the information technology and author of "The identity" digital in question (Editions Eyrolles)at a meeting organized by Microsoft and the AFCDP (French Association of the corresponding to the protection of the personal data). Tomorrow, will need to add the information gathered by (readable distance) RFID chips, which équiperont all items sold by large distribution, geolocation services soon available on mobile phones. Not to mention, a little later, nanotechnology. "With nanotechnology, can communicate with objects so small that they will be invisible to the microscope, to alarm Alex Türk, President of the CNIL." You won't know if it is listen you and you'll be attention to what you say. There is a risk of autoformatage. We will end up like us. The risk of nanotechnology, it is the clonagemental!

Technically difficult

The solutions Members of the scientific community and businesses are more likely to focus on the problem: Inria (national Institute of research in computer science and control) reflects on a new architecture of the Web, Microsoft wants to encourage anonymous transactions, while George Washington, in Seattle in the United States, Board on data which autodétruiront University (see below). Policies, such as Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, emphasize the right to oblivion, i.e. the right to cover his tracks. "With the Internet, it crossed a level in the transmission and conservation of information: data on the Internet is universal in time and space, insists Yves Détraigne.". There is a right to remorse... "Pas evident, counter Web players. "The right to oblivion is something that sounds very much as a principle, but it must understand in a slightly more complicated context, says Peter Fleischer,"privacy council"(responsible for the protection of personal data) in Google.". Delete, technically, it is difficult: information are copiées, transferred to as many servers that there are sites that repeat this information...

The easiest, for the moment, is to be very careful when we publish information online. "To say the least possible, pounding Alex Türk." If you more say that necessary, could you draw, target you. "And it will be extremely difficult to erase!