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Darren Waters

What is informed consent?

  • Darren Waters
  • 19 May 08, 17:00 GMT

When you sign up for a Facebook account, or an AOL account, or any one of a thousand different online services, do you ever read the terms and conditions?

I certainly don't. I just tick the necessary box and move on.

In so doing, I could be opening myself up to all sorts of things I don't really want, from targeted advertising to automated e-mail alerts, but I don't have any real come back because I've given my "informed consent".

But what does informed consent mean?

It's an important question because increasingly we are being asked to consent to the use of, and sharing of, our most personal data when online by companies who want to exploit it for commercial ends.

Should informed consent be contained within terms and conditions? How can we withdraw our informed consent if we change our minds?

An international working group has been created to help uncover solutions to the problem of how to create a "legally acceptable means of establishing consumer consent".

The group has been created following a ruling by EU privacy commissioners that informed consent must be obtained if companies wish to advertise to customers.

Members include Privacy International, the Information Commissioners of Ireland, France, the UK, Germay and Slovenia, as well as the involvement of firms like Microsoft, AOL and Facebook.

Privacy consultants will manage the working group.

The group hopes to produce a number of recommendations about how informed consent should be implemented by the end of the year.

With controversies around services like still ongoing, and new services being launched by the bucket-load each week, having a unified stance on consent is more urgent than ever.

It's not a sexy topic. But it's a crucial one.


Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    I do not know if this article was intended to follow Mr Thompson post about the trial of a woman in the US that was posted a little earlier. In that particular article, MySpace's terms of use were used as a criminal act to charge the woman.

    It is important to me that we have a uniform terms of use, or a standard. If a website decides to include any particular rules outside the standard, it should be set in bold. I think the standard rules should be simple and general. If so, everyone could easily know them and this would lighten all websites' terms of use, which would mean less reading for the consumer.
    So far, I think it is unkown how someone can withdraw his consent from a website. This is yet to be decided.

    Finally, it is yet to be known how far my consent can be used, is it only civil or can be used for criminal use? I truly think it should stay civil but in some cases, where there is any physical or very strong emotional consequences or if any laws are broken, then any infraction in the terms of use should be brought as a criminal action.

  • Comment number 2.

    Informed consent should be obtained at the point the person accesses the particular service that consent is required for, not implied by some catch-all terms and conditions that are buried in a website and updated without proper individual notification to those it applies to.

    The information supplied to inform the consent should be a clear statement of the impact of using the service and not a marketing pitch.

  • Comment number 3.

    Totally agree with clickem, request consent at point of access/usage, always opt-in not opt-out, and always easy access to your profile to see what you have currently opted in to with the ability to easily opt out by un-ticking the box.

    And while we're at it, how about requiring companies to inform us when they 'share' our details with a third party, so we know who to blame (and thus boycott) when we start getting spammed. That would make companies think twice about what they do with our details.

  • Comment number 4.

    SORRY . BUT I DONT AGREE

  • Comment number 5.

    with 80/20 thinking being a consultant to phorm for the impending rollout by BT, virgin media and talk talk of phorms WEBWISE product, and the requirement for the users of this services to make an "informed choice" is there not a conflict of interest here for 80/20 thinking as their client phorm has a direct interest in the recomendations of this working group, and getting them watered down?

    80/20 thinking have also yet to release the promised video of the public meeting which happened several weeks ago(that they arranged for phorm i believe) where phorm was to answer its critics, speculation is they dare not release it as it shows phorm (their client) in a bad light

    put these two things together and you have to ask if they can be independant and have the interest of the public and not a client at heart

  • Comment number 6.

    I would have to say that if 80/20 is involved then it is the client they are working to gat accepted over the public privacy and rights.

    To be of any use they need to have no payment from the company then look objectively at the product, what it can be adjusted to do and what has already been said in America that some want to use this for editing content.

  • Comment number 7.

    Also, if you do not agree with a website terms of use and do not want to give your consent then you can not use the website and you can not discuss those terms of use with the website. Don't you think this is a concern?

    Usually a contract is made by two people, or there is an offer and then a consent (someone accepting). With the web, you can not discuss any terms of use, so people have to agree with all of them, or leave the site. This is an issue too.

 

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