Social Media Privacy Violation Project

This project investigates the use of social media in violating the privacy of others. It employs both quantitative and qualitative research methods, including questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis. The quantitative findings reveal that a significant portion of social media users are unaware of or disregard privacy settings, leading to privacy violations. Motivations for such violations include revenge, interference, fun, and entertainment. Qualitative findings analyze the UK's legal framework concerning privacy, highlighting the 'Right to Privacy' and the 'Data Protection Act, 1998'. The project concludes that while legal frameworks exist, their effectiveness is limited, and many users lack awareness or disregard the potential consequences of their actions. The study recommends increased user education and improved enforcement of existing regulations to better protect online privacy.

An investigation on use of social media for violating privacy of others
Introduction
Overview
Project motivation
Project objectives
Objectives:
1. To find out the limits that individuals understand regarding their own privacy and other‘s privacy
while using social media.
2. To analyse the appropriateness of privacy standards for others in social media.
3. To determine the factors that influence individuals in violating privacy of others.
4. To study the ethical code of conduct or legal framework to regulate the use of social media in
violating privacy of others.
5. To investigate the effectiveness of the policies and standards in protecting the privacy of people
in context of social media.
Project scope
Literature Review
The world today is very fast moving and is extensively using the internet technology. In this current era,
the social networking has become very famous on the internet and all the people around the world use
it. The generation or the age group that use it most frequently is the young population and the
teenagers. They use this tool of social media and social networking for communicating with others and
for expressing themselves in front of others. There are many social networking sites that allow the users
to talk about each other’s common interests like they are able to share their photos, interests, job
details, and political views etc. on the websites. All the people who have access to the internet are able
to view each other’s posts and they are able to discuss with them whatever is going on in their external
environment. One of the most debated topics in today’s world is the privacy concerns that arise due to
the use of social media and the social networking. People have increased their participation in this area
dramatically. There are many researches in this area and many journals and articles have talked about
these concerns. Everyone talks about the increased privacy issues due to the use of social networking
sites and the increased number of crimes due to the use of these websites. The technology is not used
by the people in a proper way and some of them are not even aware of the privacy violations that
happen with them or they do to others on the social media. People don’t refrain themselves from
sharing private information on the websites that increases the risk to their privacy. When the people

share sensitive information on the social media, the concerns related to the privacy increases
automatically.
Definitions of privacy
Different people have defined privacy in different ways. There are many different types of privacy like
the personal privacy; information privacy etc. But the privacy related to the social media is the one that
is related to the information privacy. When an individual claims to control the terms under which
his/her personal information is used, disclosed or acquired, is called information privacy. The personal
information includes the information that an individual can identify. There are boundaries to privacy of
people too. One boundary is the disclosure boundary that enables a person to manage the issues
and .0tensions between the public and the private. Then another boundary is the identity boundary that
enables a person to manage the self-representation with particular audience. This means that the
behavior of people differ with different people. The way a person behaves in office may be different
from his behavior at home. The last boundary is the temporal boundary that helps a person in managing
his past actions and his expectations about the future. The behavior in this case may change with time.
The online privacy related to personal information
The protection of the personal information on social media is a big challenge in today’s world. The
website developers are also concerned about protecting the people’s privacy. There are many
researchers who have tried to find the reason behind this and they have also recommended ways to
protect the people. (Bae and Kim, 2010) have written a paper in which they have suggested that higher
levels of privacy could be achieved when the user or the concerned person is allowed to control his
settings related to privacy. Whenever any stranger is trying to contact the person, he should be able to
stop that stranger from contacting him and in the future too, the person should protect himself from
receiving any messages from that stranger. The authors of this particular paper have put emphasis on
designing a policy of privacy for the users of social media so that their personal information is
protected and the others are not able to misuse their information. The authors of the paper have also
tries to design one model for privacy using the agents of mobile.
It has been stated by (Dötzer, 2006) that if privacy is lost one time, it becomes very difficult to re-
establish that privacy and protect the personal rights in the future. Thus all kinds of communication
systems must have privacy protection installed especially the mobile systems. There are profile pages on
social media where the users practice self-representation and they interact with others and introduce
themselves. They trust the data that is placed on their profile pages like the name they show, the
pictures they share etc. the social media gives opportunity to people to share their information with
others and it also allows others to comment on the things that people share. The internet and social
media is so complex that the web privacy is automatically threatened.
The state of privacy is that condition which allows only limited access to the persons. There are some
rules and policies that the users utilize for achieving certain level of protection in their information.
There are rules made for protecting the privacy of people and they differ as per the requirements and
needs. For example, there is location privacy in which protection is given against the access to the

location of the user. But if the inline privacy is considered, there is no rule or policy to restrict the
privacy breach online or on social media. There are just solutions that are being developed to protect
the privacy of people. Some of these solutions include the protective technologies, legislative support
and the social awareness. Among the protective technologies, the control is given to the access of the
information and it also demands strong authentication of the information before it can be used by
someone else. There protective technologies have been developed and they have been evolved with
time. The use of encryption is very common in these technologies and encryption helps in solving the
privacy related concerns in this. Then social awareness is used when the people are educated about the
risks of misuse of the personal information if the people give their personal information online like their
home address or their phone number. Finally, the privacy can be protected using legislation and the
agreements with the users can be clarified for protecting the personal information. Thus law or the legal
framework can be used for protecting the personal information of the people.
Online privacy risks
There are several risks surrounding the posting of personal information details on social networks.
These threats can be caused by hackers or spammers who obtain users’ personal information details.
Identity theft is one of the major risks that users face (Williams et al. 2009). Access to sensitive
information may also lead to terrorism risks, financial risks and physical or sexual extortion
(Gharibi&Shaabi 2012). Gao et al. (2011) discussed the common privacy breach attacks in online social
networks. First, users usually upload their personal information when they trust the service provider.
However, the provider can use these details for business purposes such as advertising. In addition, it is
not only the service providers who can see the users’ personal information. Some online social networks
provide users with policies to determine the list of authorized persons who can see their personal
information. These policies vary from one provider to another; some providers give users more flexibility
than others and some provide encryption for their data. The second privacy breach can be caused by the
user’s friends, who can share the user’s personal information details with others. Friends who have
access to the user’s personal information can copy and publish this information. The third breach is due
to spammers. When spammers see the user’s friend list, they can see other users’ personal information
by sending them a friend request, impersonating one of his/her friends by using the friend’s name or
picture. Lastly, breaches can be caused by third party applications installed by users. These applications
can be a threat to users, especially if they are not from a trusted provider. When the application
accesses the users’ personal information, others can obtain this information. Novak and Li (2012) also
claimed that privacy breaches can be caused by friends, applications, and exploitation of personal
information details by the service providers for advertising. The authors added that understanding
privacy settings is not enough to protect users, especially from friends and other online social network
users. Thus, social networking websites such as Facebook prioritize the development of tools to protect
privacy. This is manifested in the social network providers’ requests for new users to create new privacy
settings. However, some users do not realize the risk of leakage of personal information (Lee et al.
2011). Therefore, sensitive information such as home address and date of birth should not be published
online in order to avoid risks to online privacy. Increasing user awareness of these risks, providing a

privacy management system for users to control their personal information details, and constantly
updating privacy policies can lead to a decline of these risks (Gharibi&Shaabi 2012).
In addition, O’Brien and Torres 2012 wrote an article named Social Networking and Online Privacy:
Facebook Users’ Perceptions. As a result, the researchers found that Facebook users are alert and
cautious when using the social networking sites. However, Facebook users are not completely informed
or aware of all activities concerning privacy on the social networking sites. Though, low trust levels to
date have not hindered activity on Facebook and membership continues to rise. Facebook users seem
willing to push aside trust issues to achieve social interaction. The importance of trust in a social
networking context is clearly questionable and perhaps different determinants for online activity exist in
different online environments. There are a number of barriers to trust in the online environment. These
barriers include perceived risk, website design and content, the user themselves and privacy concerns.
Privacy concerns are considered the greatest barrier of them all because ‘the internet, by design, lacks
unified provisions for identifying who communicates with whom; it lacks a well-designed identity
infrastructure’ (Leenes et al., 2008). Privacy concerns include online information collection techniques
such as cookie technology involving extreme surveillance. The use and analysis of data are also a
concern due to unethical merging and data mining practices to profile customers. The instant recording
and permanence of activity, loss of control and ownership of data also creates barriers to online activity
(Tavani, 2011). Social networking users claim to be concerned about risks to privacy, yet do little to
safeguard their information (Dwyer et al., 2007). Often users openly disclose detailed and personal
information on these networks, comfortable living a part of their lives online (Rosenblum, 2007).
However, Facebook has continually introduced new features and services including the Newsfeed,
Facebook Beacon, Facebook Advertisements and Facebook Platform, which subsequently lead to
changes in the privacy settings and the privacy policy (less privacy) (Fletcher, 2010). With each additional
expansion to the website has come a growing level of discontent and concern and a general feeling that
‘the company was eroding privacy and making substantial information public’ (Rothery, 2010).
Online privacy protection
Privacy settings, that allow the user to control the profile view and distribution of personal data, vary
across social networking websites, and there is no privacy standard for controlling the user’s personal
information settings. Although privacy settings should be chosen carefully, most online social network
providers have complex privacy settings (Novak & Li 2012). These complex privacy settings may cause
confusion among users (Gundecha, Barbier& Liu 2011). Different techniques have been designed to
increase personal information privacy protection. Williams et al. (2009) listed some steps for online
social network users to stay safe. These included: being aware of the risks of social networks, limiting
the posting of personal information details, and being careful when dealing with strangers online or
when reading any information from any sender. Most social networking sites have given their users
more authority to control privacy settings. Users of some social networking sites are now able to classify
their friend list into sub-lists, which allows some personal information details, such as birthday or
relationship status, to be visible to one sub-list and hidden from others. Fang et al. (2010) designed a
privacy recommendation wizard based on user inputs to help users classify their friend list into sub-lists.
The wizard gives the user two options: to allow the friends in their sub-list to see their personal

information, or to deny them access to this information. Configuring privacy settings so that only friends
can see your posts is not enough to defend oneself from other attacks such as applications and
advertisements (Stutzman& Kramer-Duffield 2010). Lipford, Besmer and Watson (2008) found that
showing an example of privacy settings International Journal of Security, Privacy and Trust Management
( IJSPPRIVACY) vol 2, No 2, April 2013 6 will enable users to understand their privacy settings better. It
will also help them find out who can see their personal information. For instance, Facebook allows users
to see their profiles from their friends’ point of view; this allows users to see what personal information
their friends can see. This technique helps users understand privacy settings but does not provide
security to protect them from neighbourhood attacks or other types of attacks such as viruses or spam.
Fang and Lefevre (2010) designed a privacy wizard system to make it easier for users to control their
privacy settings. It was designed based on friends classification to groups and asking questions. It guides
users in choosing privacy settings for group or individual users by allowing the users to see or hide an
item. For example, if Alice is Bob’s friend, then Bob can identify which items of his profile Alice can see.
Bob can hide some details such as his date of birth and mobile number from Alice, and can do the same
for his other friends.
There has been some previous work attempting to apply nudging to computer security. For instance,
Brustoloni et al. developed security dialogs in which users were held accountable for their decisions to
open email attachments. Those who took unjustified risks could be “subject to a variety of sanctions,
such as being unable to use the application for increasing periods of time...” A user study found that
these dialogs resulted in significantly fewer unjustified risks [35]. An approach similar to nudging can be
found in persuasive computing, a sub-field of computer science concerned with systems intentionally
designed to “change a person’s attitude or behavior in a predetermined way” [37]. Persuasive
technologies have been applied in specific domains including computer security. For instance, Forget et
al. built a text password system that encourages users to create stronger text password [38]. A number
of mechanisms have been proposed to help users better protect their privacy in social media. Fang et al.
designed a privacy wizard that asks users to iterate over privacy settings for some of their friends. Based
on this information, a classifier could be built automatically to categorize the remaining friends [36].
Lipford et al. investigated interfaces for social network privacy controls, comparing compact settings in
the form of expandable grids to visual policies. They found that both alternatives were usable, but
different users appreciated them for different reasons [40]. While most previous work on privacy
protections for social media has focused on helping users adjust their settings up front, our work
employs tools that encourage real-time adjusprivacyents during or immediately following the
composition of a Facebook post.

Research Methodology
Research Methods and Framework- quantitative and qualitative
Data generation methods- observation, questionnaires, documents, interviews
Data analysis
Research Analysis and Findings
Findings from quantitative sources
Why do you use social media?
To stay connected
with friends To stay connected
with areas/people of
interests like
celebrities, film
industry, political
industry etc.
To express my views,
opinions, thoughts,
knowledge about
some current issue
To spy in the lives of
others For passing time
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
10%
30% 30%
25%
5%
It is found in the research that the main reasons due to which people use social media are: 30% people
use it for staying connected with areas/people of interests like celebrities, film industry, and political
industry etc. and 30% people use it for expressing their views, opinions, thoughts, knowledge about
some current issue. Apart from this, there are 25% of the respondents who use social media for spying

in the lives of others, 10% use it for staying connected with their friends and only 5% use it for passing
their time.
How often people use the social media platform for posting something or for commenting on someone?
Everyday Many times in
a week Occasionally Very rarely Never
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
33%
50%
10%
5% 2%
It is found in the research that 50% of the respondents in the study use the social media platform for
posting something or for commenting on someone many times in a week. 33% of the respondents in the
study use the social media platform for posting something or for commenting on someone every day.
Only 10% of the people under the study use it occasionally, 5% says that they use it very rarely and 2%
of them never use the social media platform for posting something or for commenting on someone.
Are you aware of the privacy settings of your social media accounts and its use?

Yes No Not very sure
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
45%
25%
30%
It is found in the research that most of the people i.e. 45% of them are aware of the privacy settings of
their social media accounts and its use. 30% of them are not very sure about the privacy settings i.e.
they are not sure whether they are aware of the privacy settings of their social media accounts and its
use or not. 25% of the respondents are not at all aware of the privacy settings of their social media
accounts and its use.
Do you use the privacy settings in controlling and monitoring the posts you share or the people you
follow?
Yes No Sometimes
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
50%
30%
20%

It is found that 50% of the people use privacy settings in controlling and monitoring the posts that they
share or the people they follow. 30% of the people do not use privacy settings in controlling and
monitoring the posts that they share or the people they follow. Only 20% of the people sometimes use
privacy settings in controlling and monitoring the posts that they share or the people they follow.
In what ways do you control the privacy related settings of your social media accounts?
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4 40%
10%
20%
30%
It is found in the study that 40% of the people control the privacy related settings of their social media
accounts by adjusting the settings for controlling the other people’s access on their account and on the
things that they post or publish. 30% of the people just know how to control the privacy settings of their
social media accounts. 20% of them are not aware about the procedure to control the privacy settings of
their social media accounts. Only 10% of the people are aware about the privacy settings but they don’t
bother about controlling them.
When you use your social media accounts like the Facebook account or the Twitter account, do you
make your posts visible to all the users of internet?

Yes No Sometimes
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
50%
15%
35%
It is found that when people use their social media accounts like the Facebook account or the Twitter
account, 50% of them make their posts visible to all the users of internet, 35% of them sometimes make
their posts visible to all the users of internet and 15% of them does not make their posts visible to all the
users of internet.
Do you take permission of your friends, followers or anybody (about whom you share something or talk
something) before presenting them on social media?
Yes No Sometimes
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
5%
60%
35%
It is found that 60% of the people do not take permission of their friends, followers or anybody (about
whom they share something or talk something) before presenting them on social media. 35% of the
people sometimes take permission of their friends, followers or anybody (about whom they share
something or talk something) before presenting them on social media and only 5% of them take

permission of their friends, followers or anybody (about whom they share something or talk something)
before presenting them on social media.
Do you think that you should take permission of your friends, followers or anybody (about whom you
share something or talk something) before presenting them on social media?
Yes No
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
40%
60%
It is found that 60% of the people do not feel the need to take permission of their friends, followers or
anybody (about whom they share something or talk something) before presenting them on social
media. But 40% of the people feel that they should take permission of their friends, followers or
anybody (about whom they share something or talk something) before presenting them on social
media.
When your friend/follower shares something about you or anybody else on the social media, do you or
that person has the ability to control it?

Yes No To an extent
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
30% 30%
40%
40% of the respondents say that when their friend/follower shares something about them or anybody
else on the social media, to an extent they ability to control it. 30% say that they have the ability to
control it and 30% say that they don’t have the ability to control it.
When your friend/follower shares something about you or anybody else on the social media, do you or
that person has the right to limit that post or report it or mark it as spam?
Yes No Sometimes
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
50%
20%
30%
It is found in the study that 50% of the people feel that they have the right to limit the post or report it
or mark it as spam when their friend/follower shares something about them or anybody else on the
social media. 30% of the people feel that they sometimes have the right to limit the post or report it or
mark it as spam when their friend/follower shares something about them or anybody else on the social
media. Only 20% of the respondents’ people feel that they do not have the right to limit the post or