Facebook Timeline Mobile: Still Neglecting Privacy

The global rollout of the Facebook Timeline feature is now complete, and some of its features can be accessed via mobile devices. What the mobile access features do not include, however, is privacy settings.

This is not really a surprise, coming as it does from Facebook. The company seems to have an innate distaste for privacy, above and beyond its business model. But for IT professionals who deal with security, it means that Facebook will continue to be a big source of concern.

Photos Yes, Privacy No

As reported by TechCrunch, the new mobile features for Timeline are available for Android 1.8.1, and also via HTML 5 on the Facebook mobile site. These features will no doubt be appealing to regular Facebook Timeline users, allowing them to scroll through Timeline logs and browse uploaded photos. Users can also look at third-party app activity, and in some cases, open the apps.

Mobile users cannot, however, access the activity log, which is where the privacy settings are located.

The TechCrunch report does note that "mobile Timeline looks beautiful, and the interface isn't overly cluttered with controls better suited for the web." Perhaps a case could be made that "controls better suited for the web" include the activity log and privacy settings. Mobile devices are very different from desktop and even laptop computers, with less room for any control features.

But given that Facebook just recently agreed to independent privacy audits for the next 20 years, the lack of mobile access to Timeline privacy features is telling. Clearly, Facebook did not have privacy in mind when designing the Timeline mobile features and was not about to delay the release to incorporate privacy support.

A Security Hole

As we recently noted here at Infoboom, Facebook Timeline is inherently problematic when it comes to data security. It makes a user's past more easily searchable. And even the most innocuous facts about our past lives can open security holes. (For example, answers to security questions of the sort used to get around forgotten passwords.)

Mobile access to Timeline only accentuates the headache for IT professionals at small and midsize businesses (SMBs). At the heart of the problem posed by the consumerization of IT is the difficulty of securing employees' personal mobile devices.

Employees are far more possessive of their smartphones than they are of their company-issue desktop computers. They resist security measures for their smartphones that they would not blink at for a desktop.

And Facebook still seems bent on pushing your company's employees, along with other users, into living in a data fishbowl.

Source: http://www.theinfoboom.com/articles/facebook-timeline-mobile-still-neglecting-privacy/

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