Regulator here stopped Facebook self-harm alert service
IRELAND’S Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) Helen Dixon stopped Facebook from introducing a new feature that would have seen the social platform contact health authorities if evidence of self-injury or suicidal ideation was seen in its users’ accounts.
Facebook wanted to introduce the automated feature to help identify users at risk of suicide or self-harm, the DPC says in its annual report, published today.
Details of these users “would then be notified to external parties such as police and voluntary organisations to action an intervention with the users concerned”.
However, the data regulator raised a number of concerns, asking about safeguards that would apply to such sensitive data. It then requested that Facebook consult public health authorities across Europe before proceeding with the move.
The social networking giant told the DPC that it still hopes to introduce the feature as a “long-term initiative, given the challenges experienced by governments and national public health authorities due to the Covid-19 pandemic”.
Facebook allows other users to report suicidal or self-harm content they see on the platform. It plans to automate this process using algorithms.
IRELAND’S Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) Helen Dixon stopped Facebook from introducing a new feature that would have seen the social platform contact health authorities if evidence of self-injury or suicidal ideation was seen in Facebook users’ accounts.
Facebook wanted to introduce the automated feature to help identify users at risk of suicide or self-harm, the DPC says in its annual report, published today. Details of these users “would then be notified to external parties such as police and voluntary organisations to action an intervention with the users concerned”.
However, the data regulator raised a number of concerns, asking about safeguards that would apply to such sensitive data. It then requested that Facebook consult public health authorities across Europe before proceeding with the move.
The social networking giant told the DPC that it still hopes to introduce the feature as a “long-term initiative, given the challenges experienced by governments and national public health authorities due to the Covid-19 pandemic”.
Facebook allows other users to report suicidal or self-harm content they see on the platform. However, the tech company’s current plans seek to automate this process using algorithms.
In its report, the DPC said that Facebook would be allowed to use the algorithm for the purposes of detecting and removing suicidal or self-harm content discovered in user accounts – a purpose that stops short of automatically contacting third parties about it.
The report also reveals that Ireland’s DPC stopped Facebook from introducing a Europe-wide feature about elections, partly because the social network could not guarantee that associated data wouldn’t be used to sell ads on the platform.
The annual report discloses, too, that her office was partially responsible for Google introducing a new spoken command feature on its smart speakers, allowing users to orally request that conversations or records be deleted.
Elsewhere, the report details how the DPC stopped a facial recognition trial in a secondary school last February, calling the trial “intrusive”.
It also intervened to help a man overcome a Tinder ban by helping him prove to Tinder that a smartphone software issue was to blame for him appearing to have multiple accounts, which is in violation of Tinder’s rules.
In an interview today with the Irish Independent’s Big Tech Show podcast, Ms Dixon said the Irish DPC has “not come to a definitive conclusion” on whether the Department of Children was right to initially delete recordings of survivor testimonies associated with the Mother and Baby Homes Commission report.
“We have to work with reality,” she said. “And the reality is that they [the recordings] have been retrieved and they are being passed to the Minister for Children.
“And I think it’s clear from what we’ve seen said publicly from the minister that his concern is to get back to a point where the personal data is at least available, and then that choices in accordance with the wishes of the data subjects themselves can be considered, while also respecting any third-party rights issues that may arise.”
If you have been affected by suicide, please contact the Samaritans helpline: 116 123.