[Air-l] FOAF and privacy

[Rowin Young]

Hello all,

I wondered if anyone had any opinions or could recommend good material on
the FOAF (friend of a friend) project, particularly in relation to the
privacy of the people who are listed on (so called!) friends' foaf files
without their knowledge or permission.

I did find one very interesting article at
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/events/foaf-galway/papers/fp/technical_and_
privacy_challenges/, but one thing that struck me was the quite aggressive
tone (I felt) it took in the discussion of privacy, stressing that the data
owner has the right to do what they want with their data, and the data
subject has no rights over information about them.  I'd be interested to
know if this is the case in UK law as well as US.

Many thanks for any thoughts or insights on this!

Dr Rowin Young
University of Strathclyde