Privacy is precious... we should protect it

When even my 80-yearold mother questions giving her date of birth when setting up her Facebook account, is it really such a surprise to the rest of the world that their personal details were taken for a more nefarious purpose than just an electronically generated message on their birthday? It seems so. And while the man charged with framing our data protection laws, the energetic UK Government minister, Matt Hancock, was no doubt delighted to be touring television studios and radio stations last week to extoll his “expert” views on the emerging Facebook scandal, he equally didn’t expect it to get quite so personal.

Having criticised Facebook for breaching the privacy of millions of its users, Hancock had to embarrassingly admit on ITV’s Good Morning Britain that his own app – the Matt App – which he launched to facilitate contact with his constituents, had been caught doing the same.

The app was swamped with journalists and others pretending to be politicians including one Donald Trump, a Boris, an Ed Balls as well as a couple of Liz Trusses but when it emerged the app was also mining data including the personal photos of users, the MP found himself on the wrong side of his rules.

So, when even those charged with trying to protect the rest of us fall foul of the data protection laws, isn’t is best, when it comes to personal details, to just keep mum?