Privacy Module

Lesson 2: Protecting Individual Privacy

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Part 1

Why is privacy important?

The personal information you choose to share online can become part of your online identity and reputation.It is important to think about what the information you share about yourself says to others. It is also important to think about other people’s privacy and how you interact with others through online communities.

Privacy is personal and can vary depending on individual preferences and cultural norms.

What are private materials?

Your personal definition of privacy, or what and with whom you choose to share information, greatly impacts your online identity. We’ll learn more about online identity and reputation in Lesson 4 (Online Identity and Reputation).

Private materials can include personally identifiable information, intellectual property and copyrighted material. Let’s explore each of these areas in greater detail.

What is personally identifiable information?

Personally identifiable information (PII) is any information relating to someone that could help someone else identify that person, whether directly or indirectly.

Here are some common types of personally identifiable information:

• Government-issued identification
• Addresses and location information such as home address, office location, geo-tagged photos and location sharing at events
• Banking or credit card information, like account number, routing number and employee direct deposit information
• Fingerprints and face/retina scans

Other types of personally identifiable information

• Medical history (such as details about personal illnesses or related treatments)
• Economic or financial status (such as information about major purchases like a home or personal vehicle, information about personal business or employment status or details about personal investments and loans)
• Cultural affiliations and memberships (like participation in a group related to biological, geographical, historical, linguistic or other relevant identities)
• Social or family relationships of a person (for example, if a person is married, engaged, single or has a new child)

People may have different opinions about what types of personal information they want to share and how they want it shared. For example;

• Ahmed recently overcame an illness. His friends and family held an online fundraiser to support his treatment and publicized it widely on social media. He is grateful for their support but also hesitant about sharing his medical history with his employer and others.
• Dalia was recently excited about her upcoming wedding to Hassan, but does not feel comfortable sharing this information with her employer.
• Omar is active in a Facebook group for people with ADHD but does not want his broader group of friends to know about his diagnosis.

Part 2

Understanding and following Community Guidelines

There are usually broad community guidelines relating to privacy for most applications online. No matter which application or site you are visiting, you should be aware of what you can and cannot post.

Privacy Violations and Image Privacy Rights

Privacy and the protection of personal information are fundamentally important values for Meta. We work hard to safeguard your personal identity and information and we do not allow people to post personal or confidential information about yourself or of others.

We remove content that shares, offers or solicits personally identifiable information or other private information that could lead to physical or financial harm, including financial, residential, and medical information, as well as private information obtained from illegal sources.

We also provide people ways to report imagery that they believe to be in violation of their privacy rights. (fb.me/privacy-violations-image-privacy-rights)

Do not post:

1. Content that shares or solicits any of the following private information, either on Facebook or through external links:

• Personally identifiable information about yourself or others
• Personal identity: identifying individuals through government-issued numbers.
• National identification number (for example Social Security Number (SSN), Passport Number, National Insurance/Health Service Number, Personal Public Service Number (PPS), Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)).
• Government IDs of law enforcement, military, or security personnel.
• Personal information: directly identifying an individual, by indicating the ID number or registration information and the individual’s name.

2. Records or official documentation of civil registry information (marriage, birth, death, name change or gender recognition, and so on)

3. Immigration and work status documents (for example, green cards, work permits, visas, or immigration papers)

4. Driver’s licenses or license plates

5. Credit Privacy Number (CPN)

• Digital identity: authenticating access to an online identity

6. Email addresses with passwords

7. Digital identities with passwords

8. Passwords, pins or codes to access private information

9. Other private information

• Personal contact information of others such as phone numbers, addresses and email addresses
• Personal financial information about yourself or others, including:
  • Non-public financial records or statements.
  • Bank account numbers with security or PIN codes.
  • Digital payment method information with login details, security or PIN codes.
  • Credit or debit card information with validity dates or security PINs or codes.

• Financial information about businesses or organizations, including:
  • Financial records or statements except when the financial records of the business are publicly available (for example, listed on stock exchanges or regulatory agencies, and so on)
  • Bank account numbers accompanied by security or PIN codes.
  • Digital payment method information accompanied by log in details, security or PIN codes.

• Residential information;
  • Imagery that displays the external view of private residences if all of the following conditions apply:
  • The residence is a single-family home, or the resident's unit number is identified in the image/caption.
  • The city/neighborhood or GPS PIN (for example, a pin from Google Maps) are identified.
  • The content identifies the resident(s).
  • That same resident objects to the exposure of their private residence, or there is context of organizing protests against the resident (This does not include embassies that also serve as residences).
  • Content that exposes information about safe houses by sharing any of the below, unless the safe house is actively promoting information about their facility.

• Actual address
• Images of the safe house
• Identifiable city/neighborhood of the safe house
• Information exposing the identity of the safe house residents
• Medical information: Records or official documentation displaying medical, psychological, biometric, or genetic hereditary of others.
• Information obtained from hacked sources: Except in limited cases of newsworthiness, content claimed or confirmed to come from a hacked source, regardless of whether the affected person is a public figure or a private individual.

10. The following content also may be removed: 

A reported photo or video of people where the person depicted in the image is:

• A minor under 13 years old, and the content was reported by the minor or a parent or legal guardian.
• A minor between 13 and 18 years old, and the content was reported by the minor.
• An adult, where the content was reported by the adult from outside Egypt and applicable law may provide rights to removal.
• Any person who is incapacitated and unable to report the content on their own.

11. For the following Community Standards, we require additional information and/or context to enforce:

• Content that puts a defector at risk by outing the individual with personally identifiable information when the content is reported by credible government channels.
• Depictions of someone in a medical or health facility if reported by the person pictured or an authorized representative.

Part 3

Managing your privacy

Be thoughtful when sharing personally identifiable information with specific applications, software, or tools that you use. There are many reasons you may choose to share information for different purposes: to make a purchase, to celebrate a milestone or to promote a business. When sharing information, make sure it aligns with your own comfort level in terms of your privacy. In a later module, you will learn more about specific strategies for staying secure online.

Discussion/Self-Reflection

• What types of features do you typically use to manage your privacy?
• What could you use in the future?

Ways to share

Some people are more comfortable sharing personally identifiable information in certain circumstances. For example, a person may feel comfortable sharing information in an individual communication to a trusted recipient via email or encrypted message (for more information about encryption, see the Security Module). Sharing the same message on a social media profile, or posting it in a group forum, may not feel as comfortable. In those more public forums, information that may be considered private is now more easily shared.

Part 4

Memorialization

Opportunity to consult the Community Standards: Memorialization

The term “personal identifiable information” can also refer to the information of deceased people where this is required under applicable privacy and data protection laws.

Memorialization policy rationale

When someone passes away, friends and family can request that we memorialize the Facebook account. Once memorialized, the word "Remembering" appears above the name on the person's profile so the account is now a memorial site and protects against attempted logins and fraudulent activity. To respect the choices someone made while alive, we aim to preserve their account after they pass away.

We have also made it possible for people to identify a legacy contact to look after their account after they pass away. To support the bereaved, in some instances we may remove or change certain content when the legacy contact or family members request it.

Visit Hard Questions for more information about our memorialization policy and process. And see our Newsroom for the latest tools we are building to support people during these difficult times.

For victims of murder and suicide, we will remove the following content if it appears on the deceased’s profile photo, cover photo, or among recent timeline posts when requested by a legacy contact or family member of the deceased:

• Visual depiction of the object used in the deceased’s death.
• Imagery of the convicted or alleged murderer of the deceased.
• Content related to the deceased’s death.

For victims of murder, we will also remove the convicted or alleged murderer from the deceased’s profile if referenced in relationship status or among friends.

For the following Community Standards, we require additional information and/or context to enforce:

When brought to our attention by the legacy contact or a family member of the deceased, we will:

• Remove violating comments on a memorialized profile, which would typically require the individual to self report so that we know that they are unwanted.
• Remove praise or support for the death, disease, or harm of the deceased person on a memorialized profile.
• Change the deceased individual’s privacy settings from public to friends-only when there is harmful content on the profile.
• Change a violating account name on the profile of the deceased individual.

Additional Resources

• Facebook Data Policy
• Facebook Data Processing
• Instagram Data Policies
• WhatsApp Privacy Page

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