When I was attending the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) Best Practices Meet for Data protection – a Nasscom initiative on Thursday, a colleague sounded that protection of Social Media data is of equal or higher importance as any other data being handled by corporate houses, financial institutions, hospitals, etc.  This had me wondering – is it necessary to protect all the data emerging out of the Social Media space? Considering the amount of frivolous data being generated on networking sites, shouldn’t they be segregated? Now, I am not ignoring the fact networking sites are generating useful data and are emerging as invaluable marketing tools. But still, who would be in charge of segregation and protection? A tweet like – my dog burped or an I am drinking coffee status on Face book. Do we need to protect them all?  Would it follow a similar process as that is being designed for the outsourcing industry – which was the focus of the Meet – India a secure destination for outsourcing.

When this question was posed, Dr Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO DSCI replied the entire onus lay on the shoulders of the network from where it has originated – meaning social media networks like FaceBook, Myspace, Youtube, Twitter are individually responsible for the data generated on these platforms.

But shouldn’t the responsibility be with the people rather?  It is they who are generating the data and they should be responsible for the same – it is they who should decide what needs to be stored and what to be ignored.  For example, a data fed by a person on a social media network in a fit of anger or depression can come to haunt him years later when even he would have forgotten that such a data existed. Under such circumstances, what can he do? Who can be held responsible for the leakage of such a data – definitely not the platform from where it has originated. Because their privacy terms and conditions make it very clear that they would be storing the data.  This brings me back to another point – How many of us in India actually read the terms and conditions before clicking on the I Accept button?

I feel the social media data storage and protection is entirely a different ball game. Unlike the outsourcing industry, where stress is on how secure and protected the data is, on social media, the stress should be on what data is being secured and protected.

There can be debates and discussions on this, but as a Social Media enthusiast trying to strike a balance between the real and the virtual world, I feel, till the time a solution to this issue is found, the people should use Social Media platforms very responsibly – they need to treat the virtual world as they would the real world – after all real people exist in the virtual world.