Will #privacy Ever Trend?

The changes in online technology and marketing devices have resulted in an explosive growth of social media in the past few years. This fuelled with an online global reach, easily accessible social media on the go and advert-funded business models, has resulted in a social media era set to stay. From a business perspective, social media is an important tool to inform and influence target markets, but consumers are no longer 'passive agents of consumption', but are contributors to the information provided by online service providers. This dynamic new market place raises significant legal questions, and challenges us to consider whether privacy can truly exist in this age of social media?

New technology has always challenged traditional concepts of privacy, but the influx in the use of social media in recent years has brought this threat to the forefront of both lawmaker's and consumer's minds. The protection of personal data and privacy has evolved to produce a mix bag framework, consisting of contractual agreements between consumer and company, technical features enforced by social media outlets, industry standards and legal regulation. With the legal framework protecting privacy in the European Union adopted in 1995 and the UK's Data Protection Act adopted in 1998, it's safe to say the law predates social networking as we know it. Facebook is now a global phenomenon with 1.2bn users,1 Twitter, launched in 2006, now has 230m users creating 500m tweets every day2 and LinkedIn now has approximately 277m users in over 200 countries and territories.3 For many, the purpose of social media is to provide a constant outlet to share personal information. However, among the UK general public, protecting personal information is considered to be the second most important social issue in front of education and preventing crime.4 A direct correlation exists between increased privacy expectations and the growth of social media.

Even with the likes of Blackberry and WhatsApp claiming that user's privacy is coded into their 'DNA', in recent years global concerns have been voiced about the extent to which individuals may be unwittingly putting their personal data at risk of exposure. Already this year, social networking giants LinkedIn and Twitter have announced vulnerabilities in their systems that have left personal information unprotected. Snapchat, an app designed with privacy in mind and described by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg as a "super interesting privacy phenomenon", announced in January...