Facebook and Twitter users 'undermine their right to privacy'

LONDON: With tech-savy employers prying to social networking sites to know more about their staff's personal lives, the employees are virtually putting their right to privacy at risk, warns a computer expert.

Users of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter post their views, messages, photos and other personal details on these forums, that can be easily accessed by their employers, thus risking their privacy, the expert opined.

"Users of new media, in their self-disclosure, are often as complicit in assaults on our privacy as the authorities which orchestrate surveillance," Kieron O'Hara of University of Southampton said at the annual conference of the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association.

A 16-year-old girl from Essex was last year sacked from her job as an office administrator after she updated about how boring the work was on her social networking account.

Employees from large companies like Marks and Spencer, and British Airways have been caught out posting rude comments about their customers on Facebook, The Telegraph reported.

Another expert on new media said sharing intimate details on the sites could also damage personal relationships.

"As new technology and social media encourage sharing of the small details of everyday life, it also reduces privacy in social relationships and may have negative effects on intimacy levels between people," said Adam Joinson of the University of Bath, an expert in computer communication.

"If you desire intimacy, it may well be disastrous to add your partner to Facebook, or to follow them on Twitter," he added.