The legal framework protecting your privacy on social networks
The security of personal data is worth considering before you even download an application. In legal terms, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is the European regulation on personal data, adopted in 2016 and in force since 25 May 2018.
Article 1 sets out its objectives clearly: to lay down “rules relating to the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and rules relating to the free movement of personal data”, and to protect “the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons”.
Every company, charity, public body and government institution has to comply, under threat of substantial penalties.
Privacy in a digital world
In an age of new technology, and with the growth of social networks, users’ privacy is not a neglected subject. Privacy means the sphere of intimacy each person holds, which concerns nobody else. Every user has a right to respect for their private and family life, and that includes the protection of personal data and information. One concept frames this: the right to be forgotten.
In short, this right aims to protect the privacy of every European individual by giving them the ability to delete their personal data and information online if they wish. Since May 2014, Google has provided a right-to-be-forgotten form, intended to remove certain information and content from the results of Google, Bing and Yahoo.
The three parts of the right to be forgotten
The right to be forgotten has three main parts: the right to object, the right to erasure, and the right to delisting. The right to object means legitimately objecting to personal data being recorded, published or retained. The right to erasure gives a person the opportunity to remove online content that may harm them, whether a photograph, a video, a press article or information disclosed on social networks. Delisting means removing certain terms from search engines, so that they no longer appear in results.
Protecting data online
Sharing photographs, comments and likes through a photo application is one thing; doing so while securing your data and minimising the risk of a breach is better.
Handling large volumes of data, whether on the open internet or through photo applications, requires security in every form. That is why a good many applications have appeared with the aim of hardening operating systems and securing the data on your phone.
Sensible precautions matter too, to avoid unpleasant surprises: do not accept questionable permissions, and limit the data access you grant to the applications you download.
Knowing your data is secure is reassuring. At WeChain, data security is one of our core commitments. In the application, you decide whether or not to make your photographs, comments and likes public. If the setting is private, nobody outside the event has access to the content published. As a private social network, the application guarantees confidentiality.
In more technical terms, WeChain means:
- personal data secured and stored encrypted in the database (bcrypt)
- photographs hosted in secure storage and accessible only according to the rights defined in the WeChain dashboard (AWS S3 bucket with access control)
- encrypted, secure web traffic (HTTPS, TLS 1.2)
Only guests and attendees have access to the photographs and comments, and that remains true after the event. They can keep commenting on photographs, so the event lives on, and no other user can reach that information. All your content is stored in the application’s cloud, which means it does not eat into your phone’s storage and that every photograph from the event stays gathered in one application.
Security even on the big screen
One case is specific to WeChain: all guest photographs are shown on a large screen during the event as a photo activity. The obvious question follows: what if an embarrassing photograph appears on that screen?
There is no need to worry. No photograph judged offensive will be displayed during the event. Through the dashboard, the organiser controls what appears on screen in a single click — one click to approve a photograph, one click to remove it, and the same for comments.