It seems especially fitting that this item came to my attention as privacy commissioners from around the world converge in Montreal this week for the 29th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, hosted by Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddard.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, it appears that Virgin Mobile in Australia is being sued by the parents of an American teen who claim that the phone company used an image taken from Flickr, superimposed its slogans and plastered the photo on billboards and web ads.
The picture was taken by the teen’s youth counsellor, who posted it that day on his Flickr page, according to the teen’s brother. The counsellor chose a Creative Commons sharing licence that allows others to reuse the photo, if appropriate credit is given. A link to the counsellor’s Flickr site appeared at the bottom of the ad.
The case should serve as a reminder of the impact that can occur with the voluntary sharing of valuable, yet private, personal information and photos shared by individuals and their so-called friends within various social networking applications.
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privacy, Virgin Mobile, Flickr