Social network trust needs to be built: Strava

Social networks need to “do a lot more” to spell out how they collect and share data to earn back trust following the Facebook scandal, the boss of fast-growing Strava has warned.

James Quarles, chief executive of the specialist social network for athletes, said that while the Cambridge Analytica data breach shone a light on privacy issues, the industry still has a long way to go to put the Facebook debacle behind it.

The San Francisco-based boss – a former regional director for Facebook across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and ex-vice president of Instagram – said lessons have been learned since the affair by both social networks and users themselves.

He said: “This industry can and should do a lot more to make it clear and transparent to people how data is collected.”

Mr Quarles added that the episode has “put a greater emphasis on trust and privacy”, with social network users also having “greater awareness” about what details they are giving out and on data policies.

He said the key is in being able to “anticipate all the various ways it can be abused” right from the start.

But Mr Quarles admitted it is hard to put resources towards this when starting up as a small company.

Strava, which has four million members in the UK out of 31 million worldwide, does not sell data and does not give away locations and personal details of its users, he said.

But the company has had to adapt to the new personal data rules across the EU and is now pushing for greater standardisation of transparency and privacy policies across the industry globally.

Mr Quarles said social networks need to spell it all out in a way that the “lay person can understand” .

“That’s the aspect that still needs leadership from the industry,” he said. “That’s what I would love to take a lead on.”