There is the unfortunate news today that five Britons have been killed in a coach crash in Ecuador (BBC News). This is tragic news, particularly for those close to the victims. While watching the news on Channel 4 News this evening, I was shocked to see the girls' Facebook page to be used as a means of identifying one of the girls who was killed.

In the days of attacks on our privacy, either by legislation or incompetence by the government, and warnings about revealing information particularly on the internet, this surely was most irresponsible.

Note that in the screengrab from Channel 4 News this evening, I have removed some very risky information:

• Date of Birth
• Relationship status and who they are in a relationship with
• Their phone number

This grab was broadcast to the entire of the UK. Malicious individuals can use this information to cause further distress or commit fraud using these details. The BBC programme Newswatch recently covered the BBC using Facebook and MySpace pages to depict individuals in the news.

It just shows that it is even more important for users to hide thier profiles from everyone except their immediate friend network. The internet is full of personal potentially private information, including sites I have written myself, and restricting the access to information that could be regarded as being subject to fraud or misuse is even more paramount. While developing these sites, I took privacy very seriously and signed up to the appropriate legislation when required, but it seems users themselves need to take as much care as the site developers - and for news agencies not to blatently broadcast the information indiscriminately in the pursuit of a 5 second grab for a news package.

Read the complete post at http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/program.x/archive/2008/04/13/is-it-right-for-dead-girls-facebook-page-to-be-used-for-cheap-news-shot.aspx