Updated security measures raise privacy concerns.
Social app X, formerly known as Twitter, has announced a controversial update to their security and privacy policy by capturing biometric and employment data from its estimated 450 million active users.
The new measure, announced in early September, will collect users’ facial photographs, in addition to employment and educational info. The purpose behind this move, according to the social app themselves, is to “recommend potential jobs for you, to share with potential employers when you apply for a job”. There is speculation, however, that it signals a move by the company to move into active recruitment services, following owner Elon Musk’s acquisition of tech recruitment firm Laskie this previous May.
The new policy will come into force, effective on September 29.
Unsurprisingly, some people have criticized the move as a blatant power grab that threatens personal privacy. Dr Stephanie Hare, a tech ethics advisor, commented that, in her opinion, the move by X was “a massive data grab, though with your consent”, noting that it as yet isn’t compulsory so from a civil liberties point of view, it hasn’t reached the point of being intrusive.
X themselves have been at pains to explain that the move only applies to subscribers of its X Premium service and not for regular users, stating “X will give the option to provide their government ID, combined with a selfie, to add a verification layer. This will also help X fight impersonation attempts and make the platform more secure.”
Musk also said they had plans to introduce video and audio calls to the app in due course, although no timeline was given for the introduction of these services.
Still though, if running X doesn’t work out for Elon, there’s always that proposed cage-fight with Mark Zuckeberg to prepare for!
