Open Privacy

In a recent segment broadcast on NPR about Privacy I heard (paraphrasing)

'A potential employer might discover something about me that I hadn't intended them to find.'

The segment was concerning the publishing of personal information on sites like Facebook or MySpace and that employers were 'researching' prospective employees as a part of the vetting process.

I so much so wish that the speaker had not used the word "intended" when expressing his/her concern about privacy. For me their entire arguement implodes when there is a suggestion that sensitive material was shared in a public forum BUT it is "intended" only for certain parties. Or conversely, that there might have been an intention to hide or deny particular personal information from a prospective employer. That is just this side of deception, a personal characteristic that I would question if I were vetting an individual for any kind of sensitive work.