Breach of privacy on website

helenH

Hi, someone told me about this site and thought that you may be able to help me because I can’t find anything on the internet about breach of privacy on a website.
I’m a subscribing private member of a genealogy site and I looked at the site this morning and found that all my photos could be seen as thumbnails in the search index although I subscribed to a private tree and their privacy notice says:
The privacy of your photos and stories is always protected and only people authorised to view your family tree will be able to see attached photos and stories.
What can I do about this breach of privacy?
Any help would be most appreciated.
Helen

enfield_freddy

can you see them because you are logged in , are they not hidden from non members?


I would say that by being a member of the site , and a subscriber logging in , would be authorisation to view

helenH

Hi and thank you for replying.
They have only recently, in the last week, changed this. Now when you hover over any of the private members’ photos you can now see a thumbnail, which is very clear and you can see living people as well as deceased. Before that you could only click on the private members’ photos, there was no thumbnail and up would come the username of the person’s tree, and then you could contact them for further information and that private member has the choice whether to let you have information or a photo.
Helen

S0litaire

Double check the setting for your account on the site.
Their might be an "advanced" or "security" setting allowing who can see your information.

It might be useful to send the site owners a message asking about this.

helenH

Hi S0litaire, I have checked everything on the site and there's nothing, nothing changed until a few days ago. It has always been that private member's family trees have been private, no one could see any photos or other docs etc, now they have breached my privacy in showing thumbnails of all my photos, and I would be most grateful if someone could tell me what to do. When you phone the website's customer help all they do is apologise, tell you that they're sorting it out and every day I look they haven't. I don't think they care about their members only the money they get and it's not cheap. Helen

enfield_freddy

delete your library , and use another company

tronator

helenH wrote: »

Hi S0litaire, I have checked everything on the site and there's nothing, nothing changed until a few days ago. It has always been that private member's family trees have been private, no one could see any photos or other docs etc, now they have breached my privacy in showing thumbnails of all my photos, and I would be most grateful if someone could tell me what to do. When you phone the website's customer help all they do is apologise, tell you that they're sorting it out and every day I look they haven't. I don't think they care about their members only the money they get and it's not cheap. Helen

Report them to the ICO

https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

helenH

Many thanks tronator, I hoped I could do something and now I can. Helen

mttylad

Or you could just give them a chance to correct the problem.

A week is possibly not enough time to be able to correct a problem.
It may be a problem with your account rather than a deliberate breach.

Email them, let them know what's happening and your concerns about it rather than just a phone call.

Don't just report them to the ICO without at least giving this company time to correct the issue.

From the ICO website:

You should raise your concerns with us within three months of your last meaningful contact with the organisation concerned.

Or in other words, they expect you to have done this already.

Annie1960

How do you know others can see your photos? How do you know that it's not just you who can see them as you are logged in, and they are your photos?

tronator

mttylad wrote: »

Or you could just give them a chance to correct the problem.

A week is possibly not enough time to be able to correct a problem.
It may be a problem with your account rather than a deliberate breach.

Email them, let them know what's happening and your concerns about it rather than just a phone call.

Don't just report them to the ICO without at least giving this company time to correct the issue.

That's what she did already.

"When you phone the website's customer help all they do is apologise, tell you that they're sorting it out and every day I look they haven't."

Of course she should check whether other people can really see the pictures. If yes, then they should take action IMMEDIATELY. If they can't sort it out right now, the site needs to go offline. Period.

Imagine MSE would make user's details publicly available. How long would you accept for them to correct it?