Telefonica owned UK mobile operator O2 was this morning caught in a storm when a user discovered that his phone number was being sent to websites he visited when roaming through O2′s network.

System Administrator Lewis Peckover discovered the data and privacy breach when building a site and wanting to know the information that was being sent and possibly collected while browsing on a mobile network.

After alerting O2 yesterday 24 January at 15.12 through Twitter it took the mobile operator nearly four hours to ask @lewispeckover for a screenshot.  This request followed a previous tweet where the company tried to reassure him by stating that ‘the mobile number in the HTML is linked to how the site determines that your browsing from a mobile device‘.

This issue went public this morning when people bombarded O2 for answers, forcing the company to issue it’s first statement at 08.49 by stating ‘we are investigating this at the moment and will update everyone as soon as possible.’

This breach in privacy creates a massive concern not just for consumers but businesses that use O2 for data roaming as sending users numbers might enable bots to harvest these for spam.

Twitter users have already been calling for O2 to be reported to both Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office (IOC).

To check if you are affected switch to 3G and use the following script developed by Lewis Peckover to see if your own UK or International overseas cellular network sends your number.

This story is developing.

Wednesday, 25 January – 15.40: O2 has tweeted at 15.32 a statement saying, ‘We’re sorry about the concern re mobile numbers and web browsing, which is now fixed. Here’s what happened + Q&A.‘  They included a link to a Q&A in their blog: http://tfs.me/wdekaS

The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) last week released their social media guidelines for their 70,000 volunteers, in which they ban individuals from posting pictures or release details of athletes, VIPs and dignitaries in backstage areas at this summer’s 2012 Olympic games.

In the hope of keeping a tight-lid on the London 2012 brand and messaging organisers have made the outrageous statement that social media will be managed by its communication team.  Such level of control is going to be nearly impossible given the number of individuals that will be operating behind the scenes.

A large majority of news outlets already use social media channels as a source that adds value and content to unfolding stories, so rather than control the possible behind the scene messages, why didn’t the communications team look to embrace these channels and empower volunteers add an extra layer of information?  It begs the question, will volunteers have to hand in the mobiles before each day that they work, sorry, volunteer for free?

Surely empowering volunteers as behind the scenes crews would act as a way to bring the spirit of the Olympics closer to the people.  Those athletes, celebrities and dignitaries that are caught in a scandal would only have themselves to blame.

As several other bloggers point out, the call by LOCOG goes against the International Olympic Committe’s (IOC) own guidelines and recommendation.

We await and see how this develops.

This time last year I made a series of predictions about social media and public relations.  I suggested that while 2010 was a year of discovery, the past 2011 was going to be about sharing and engaging.  About communities being empowered by the knowledge they will have pooled together.  I highlighted from my perspective the challenges and opportunities that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will pose for companies and individuals.  The impact that social networking has had on events during the past year has truly been beyond what anybody could have expected.

While 2010 was about Wikileaks, the past year has been about challenging the reputation of companies, organisations and individuals that used the law to hide their indiscretions.  Twitter and other social networks came into their own as members of the legal profession struggled to grasp the structure of communications across international jurisdictions.

In my post ‘2011, A Year Of Change In Public Relations,’ I said that the coming year was going to be about communities that were engaged and empowered.  Wikileaks showed what you could do privately.  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were the channels through which you could anonymously share content and opinion.  They are the channels that gathered a community together, empowering them to seek the transparency that was far too often absent.  Even the once trusted media estate came under the gaze of the community.

The Arab Spring in North Africa was an occasion that surprised many commentators. Sharing of stories on Twitter about high-profile individuals was going to happen.  Managing reputations has now moved into a real-time business.  In fact, if something wrong has been done it is today best expected that such an act will become public.

Last year I also raised the point about the power of mobile, of cellphones.  Wherever you are you have a cellphone.  You are connected to a world of real time information that reaches you as quickly as you wish to access the news that is available.  News shared by the network that you are connected to.  Reliance on traditional news channels is long gone.  News is shaped by members of the communities that we trust, which is why from a public relations perspective crises are today that when audiences go negative on a brand, cause or individual.

As I stated, news organisations are not dead and they are certainly not dying.  They are just changing and adapting to become what their primary audience wants of them.  An adoption that will continue in the 2012.

But what about the coming year?  Well, I am finishing my thoughts on this and will share these with you pretty soon.

Social media sites Facebook and twitter were blamed today by Government and Metropolitan Police spokespeople for fanning the UK #Londonriots and looting over the weekend.  Fingers were pointed at these social networking sites for the fact that they enable people to send out calls for people to gather together.

The disturbances happened after the fatal shooting of Tottenham father of four Mark Duggan who was allegedly killed in a minicab on Thursday by police firearm officers.

Blaming these sites is just placing a distraction for the real reasons for the unlawful behaviour that took place, highlighting a lack of understanding or will to understand of how people use social media today.

In fact, as Partner at Engine group Jonathan Akwue points out in his blog, it wasn’t Facebook or Twitter that fuelled the riots, but most probably BBM – BlackBerry Messenger.  BlackBerry is the phone of choice amongst a young demographic that took part in the riots, primarily because of BBM is virtually free (You just need a BlackBerry data plan) and unlike Facebook and Twitter, which are both open, it’s truly private.

BBM messages are encrypted and run through Research In Motion’s Canadian servers, and issue that has created many problems for the firm in India and the UAE, where they were threatened with being banned unless their encrypted communications were ‘opened-up’.

Emirates247 reported on 26th July that Abu Dhabi Police have warned that ‘spreading malicious rumours and fake news through BlackBerry messenger (BBM) is punishable by law and offenders could by jailed up to three years.’  The question now is if the UK Government is with it’s tarring of social networking and the recent extension of the #phonehacking judicial review going to push for something similar given that BBM is in all sense a private forum that is difficult to listen in on.

Blaming social networks is just a distraction, facilitating a reason for a possible change in policy that could be rushed through without understanding how these communication channels work.  But think about it, why would anybody wanting to do a crime share it on an open network?  Why not use a private channel?  Why can’t lawmakers understand this simple fact?

During the weekend riots Twitter was the channel used to report what was unfolding in Tottenham, Edmonton and Brixton.  A channel that captured in real-time what was organised on the locked-down BBM network.  If you wanted a real-time update you went to Twitter and used relevant search terms.

As Omar said in The Wire, “the game’s out there, and it’s play or get played. That simple.”  And at the moment the authorities are getting played.  Blaming social media confirms the distance that exists between them and the reasons that trigger the unrests.

*** UPDATE ***

BlackBerry UK have released the following statement in response to the use of BBM, ‘As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we cooperate with local telecommunications operators, law enforcement and regulatory officials. Similar to other technology providers in the UK we comply with The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully with the Home Office and UK police forces.’

Twitter this week launched ‘Twitter for Newsroom‘, an online guide to help those in publishing and journalism understand how best to find sources, verify stories and publish news online.

For many events Twitter has become the stories break, confirming how, as @nicnewman states in a report that news organisations are ‘abandoning attempts to be the first for breaking news, focusing instead on besting the best at verifying and curating it.’  Twitter has become a must-have tool for journalists, enabling them to reach out directly to people caught in the story and who want to share their experience.

All this said, the #TfN guide is very basic and top-line, not adding much value to what we already know.  The announcement highlights more how Twitter is understanding the use of it’s channel by the community as it tries to set some standards and best practice.  The channel has already made public ‘Producers’ guide to Twitter on TV‘ and ‘On-air [TV/Web] display guidelines.’

You just have to look at the case’s of injunctions in the UK of the uprisings in various Middle East countries to see how Twitter and other social networking channels have made the public into individual broadcasters, voices that can add value to a story.  But with so many voices journalists are having to develop a forensic view to enable them to dig through the noise and spin.  It is these skills that add value to journalism.

The announcement this week is a case of how the community is leading and the company is accepting the standards that we are setting.

With the upcoming integrating into Apple’s iOS5 we will see Twitter as a possible default messaging platform for those using Apple products.

House of Lords member Lord Stoneham of Droxford yesterday used Parliamentary Privilege to make public details of an #injunction that former #RBS Chief Executive Sir Fred Goodwin had on the story that he was involved in an extra-marital affair while the bank was collapsing in front of him.

The comments were made in the Chamber at the Palace of Westminster hours before legal teams met at the High Court to discuss said gagging order, with one party seeking to have it overturned.  Sir Fred himself did not object to the removal of the injunction, which enables the media to run with a story that will put plenty of heat on him once again.

Injunctions and super-injunctions have been making the headlines recently because media outlets have been unable to report on the more salacious stories that are doing the rounds about high-profile personalities.  The pub gossip that people take part is censured.  Some people criticise the judiciary, claiming that it undermines the press.  Others believe that Privacy is a basic human right that requires individual mistakes to not be splashed in the press.

My view is that the press and the individuals using these injunctions and super-injunctions are right.  The problem is that in between both arguments lies what is known as public interest, a term used by the media as a ‘catch-all.’  With this self-regulated tool, the media can invade the privacy of anybody and any organisation.  And there lies the problem.  Organisations need to be accountable, as do the people working for them and for government.  That said, there is a fine line that divides a mistake from the effect it has on an organisation.

The law has always been a tool in the public relations armoury.  Reputation management has used the law to gag a story from being discussed in the media, very much under the impression that if the media is not able to run the story then nobody will know the issues that can be damaging to their clients reputations and trust.  This is naïve, stupid and out dated.  Public relations is rarely able to repair the damage that requires this kind of force.

Yes, there is a need for Privacy and there is a need for injunctions and super-injunctions.  The question is, should they be made available and affordable to everyone?  Yes.  Should there be further debate on which applications receive one?  Yes.  Duplicity and double-standard needs to be outted.  From a public relations perspective, reputation management is always harder when the damage has been done, even though said damage is not yet in the public arena.

How many times have we as PR professionals held our head in our hands wandering how we can repair the damage by some ill-conceived decision or action?

The current debate about injunctions and super-injunctions is of course in the media because details of many of these have been outted to social networking sites.  The fact is that we live in a less media centric world where consumers of news can obtain gossip and stories online.  It is this that smashes the legal structure and protection that the law affords to individuals to protect, rightly or wrongly, the privacy and reputation.  But this in itself is a misnomer, because sites such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are based overseas in jurisdictions with firm legal structures.

Social and search sites can be notified and given due time to remove content that libels clients.  But this course this course of action to protect one’s soiled reputation carries it’s own risk – reputation is about trust and trust is won and lost in the court of public opinion.  It is the members of this court – you and I, that gathers information and consumes it.  The fact is that we live in a world where there is less control, which is why PR should learn this and work within the new structure that social networking has created.

I have given presentations to a series of law firms, highlighting how social media and it’s central pillar of information sharing, which happens cross jurisdictions can undermine their work.  The skills and ability to share information without leaving a trace is there.  The internet is a channel that crosses geographical boundaries.  There is concern that such tactics are being used within journalism to undermine the case for privacy.  It is a case of cat and mouse, and at the moment the media is the mouse the law is the old lethargic cat.

Social media has become a tool that can undermine law and if not undermine then push it into the 21^st century.  For many the law is just a form of censorship that prevents free speech and public interest.  In fact a well-known blog has made available a Google Document listing all the supposed injunctions that currently exist.  Today it is a question of if you search you will find.

Reputations today are being saved and more importantly destroyed by our own human willingness to engage in hearsay and gossip.  Individuals, companies and brands spend a lot on projecting an image that attracts business.  They should be protected, but only if the actions for which they seek an injunction or super injunction are not duplicitous.

Reputation management is today a skill amongst public relations practitioners that requires real-time management.  Controlling a crowd is nigh on impossible.  Once the damage is done an injunction will only act as a plaster.

PRs have to work not just with the legal court, but importantly the court of public opinion, a court that is a well briefed by content that is available online.

BREAKING NEWS:

It appears that a UK Premier League player has started legal proceedings against Twitter to secure the disclosure of the currently ‘unknown persons’.  Legal firm Schillings said in a statement, “to obtain limited information concerning the unlawful use of Twitter by a small number of individuals who may have breached a court order.”

We assume that such action will be taken by a partner law firm in California, though given that the unlawful act has taken place in the UK, a separate legal jurisdiction, it is going to be tricky to see how this works.  Of course, if those people who started the allegations are in the UK then they will not be eligible to America’s Constitution First Amendment, which allows free speech.

If proof was needed that social media empowers people and fuels revolutions then you should look at the unfolding situations in #Tunisia, #Egypt and countries in the middle-east. Facebook, Twitter and Egypt’s own Masrawy have connected people and empowered them to share their thoughts and opinions on how their states are governed.

The adoption of social networking in Arabic-speaking states has gone relatively unnoticed. Yet according to web research firm Alexa the top sites in Tunisia and Egypt are Facebook, Twitter and search company Google.

Anger and resentment at their respective Governments has found a nerve on people online, which has spread to citizens in respective countries.

Tunisia’s Secretary of State for Communication Sami Zaoui admitted at this week’s 2011 World Economic Forum (#WEF) about the impact that social networking had in the overthrowing of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Speaking to YouTube’s Uncultured Project Shawn Ahmed, Secretary Zaoui said, “Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have had great contribution to that [the revolution], in addition to, of course, all the demonstrators that have been in the field.” Secretary Zaoui also highlighted the fact that 40 per cent of the population being connected online to the success of the ‘Jasmine Revolution.’

But the demands from the population for work, food and democracy has spread through the region with Egyptian citizens taking to streets to demand an end of President Moubarak’s regime. Using the same sites as well as mobiles, demonstrators gathered to protest. Twitter, which is now blocked in Egypt saw a serve in use with people communicating and sharing messages using the #jan25 hashtag.

The outcome from the revolution in Tunisa unnerved the Egyptian regime, which took unprecedented action and blocked Internet services and mobile networks in the hope of quashing the uprisings. Demonstrators though quickly bypassed the authority’s firewalls and accessed the web through alternative means including the old dial-up system. Such a crackdown on communication brought condemnation from the international community.

Authorities in Egypt also started to censor and block news output, with Qatar’s Al-Jazeera having to broadcasting through alternative satellite frequencies after they were taken of air.

What social media has done is empower people. It has taught them how to overcome barriers and it’s enabled people to find a base where they can share their view and opinions. Opaque regimes have come under greater scrutiny with citizens wanting transparency and accountability. It’s enabled them to take action.

Facebook, going from strength to strength

Social media and networking channels have during the past year established themselves as the preferred method of communication amongst the varied publics that we interact with.  Facebook, Twitter and Youtube have become part of the mainstream.

Those who at the beginning of 2010 doubted the power of these channels are now active users, even evangelists.  Last year social media was about discovery.  It was about people building up their communities online.  It was about real-time engagement.

This year in 2011 we‘ll see less experimenting and an increase in engagement.  The knowledge that we have as individuals will be pooled and shared within our communities and this in it self will create challenges and opportunities for companies and individuals that we in public relations will be working with.

Communities: engaged and empowered

2010 was about Wikileaks.  Partnering with news outlets around the world including The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel Wikileaks and it’s community focused on releasing classified material to the media and public.  While the aim of the site when it was set-up in 2006 was to expose ‘oppressive regimes … (and) be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations’ Assange and his associates focused on uncovering political machinations around the world.

What Wikileaks did in 2010 was to light a fuse that will see in the coming year more people consider and question the ethics and values of their employer.  We’ve already had the case of former Julius Bär employee Rudolf Elmer who worked for the bank for over 20 years until his dismissal in 2002.  In a very public press conference at London’s Frontline club Elmer handed over to Wikileaks Julian Assange secret documents detailing the activities of his former employer in the Cayman Island and alleged tax evasion.

Sites such as Wikileaks, Openleaks andTradeleaks will prosper and be a contact point for investigative journalists and campaigning organisations wishing to question the transparency of members of the business community.

We can’t dismiss Wikileaks or what it stands for.  In fact, the publicity generated and the way in which it’s core values have been promoted will have made people, employees in sensitive positions in the corporate and private sector, more willing to leak confidential information.  For many, and not just the hacktivists, Wikileaks is the raison-d’etre it needed.

Media

The media will not die.  News will not disappear.  The fact is social networking is making news consumption as popular as ever.  Half of the problem that media organisations have though is that consumption is not taking place on platforms that publishers control and so monitise.  Research by telecoms operator Orange confirms how ‘14% of people who access the internet on their mobile phones read fewer newspapers as a result,’ before adding that, ‘13 percent said that owning smartphones like the iPhone meant they read more newspaper content online.’ And with Advertising-spend still down media organisations are working hard to find a new business model.

Last year News International started putting its main titles behind a pay-wall, something that other news outlets are watching with hope.  Murdoch is one of the only publishers that can invest in this experiment.  If it works though, and many editors are hoping that it does, then the pay-walls will be going around other titles.

Quality journalism costs money.  It shouldn’t be free.  But getting readers to spend money during a recession will be difficult and it’s because of this that in 2011 we shall see more news outlets releasing apps for mobile devices.  Those that are free will switch to a paid for subscription service.  Paying for content through apps will be a precursor to getting people to pay for quality content online.  The content that is currently free.

Mobile

Mobile is everywhere.  It is the channel that personalises everything we do.  It allows us to update our status, our community, our location, our likes and dislikes.  All this data allows brands to tailor their offerings for more personal approaches.

Why is mobile so important?  Well, over a third of Facebook’s users now access the site through a mobile device.  Twitter meanwhile has also seen a rise of people accessing it through a mobile, with also more than a third of users accessing Twitter via their mobile phone.  Expect this to rise.

Mobile is not just about phones, but also about tablet PCs and the ubiquitous iPad.  Consumers today want content, updated, on demand wherever they are.  Keeping your audiences up to date and up to speed will be central to the work of public relations professionals.  And with the news-cycle crunching down even further reaction times will shorten even further.

Crises only became so when people accessed their desktops at work or home, but with the increase use of mobiles, people will be able to react to issues quicker than ever before.  Listening and engaging will be central to the job of those working in communications.

Of course as the use of smartphones continues to grow and establish itself so will geo-location services like Facebook Places and Foursquare start to take-off.  And with the recession, business will look to use every opportunity available to them to help people part with their hard earned cash.

Content accessible through mobiles will become a must for established organisations and brands.

This year of 2011 will be a key a seminal year in the integration of social media into communications.  It will be a year of communities and engagement.

So Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has come out and warned that young people will be entitled one day to change their names so that they can escape online and social media activity that’s been recorded and could hinder their future.

The fact that young people or anybody else might need to change their name is not in my opinion what is shocking, but that society would prejudge people based on what they might have got-up to during their youth.

It’s an astonishing claim from Google, given the amount of data that they cache.

Danny Dover’s recent SEOmoz.org blog post - The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google’s User Data Collection - gives you an idea of what search engines such as Google have stored.  I would recommend that you read his post to get a clear understanding of how vulnerable reputations have become.  And why are they so vulnerable?  Well, the fact that people are sharing information makes the net a great place for data mining for investigative journalists.

Let’s remember the case of Stuart MacLennan, a prospective Labour candidate, who before seeking nomination to stand for Labour in Moray referred to pensioners as “coffin dodgers”, the common’s speaker John Bercow as a “opportunist little twat” and referring to Fairtrade he demanded a “slave-grown, chemically enhanced, genetically modified” banana.  Of course he didn’t say this in person, but Tweeted it to his followers some time before he sought the Labour party’s nomination.  Needless to say that it was a journalist who unveiled his comments, which led to the then Prime Minster Gordon Brown to sack him.  So, should he change his name?  Possibly not because in politics nearly everything is forgiven.

With social networking having taken a front seat in the way in which we communicate the watchword for managing a reputation is something that would have sounded odious some time ago.  That word is self-censorship, something that in ‘pluralistic’ countries happens just to conform to the expectations of the wider community.

The big question is my opinion is whether social media will makes us more tolerant or more authoritarian?

And for those who might be using lawyers to get libellous content removed from a web-site, while lawyers can enforce an order on the hosting company, getting the cache-trail cleaned up is a different question all together.

Sky News Studio

Sky News made the headlines in March 2009 when it appointed a Twitter correspondent to scour the real-time platform ‘for stories’ and give Sky News a presence on the Twittersphere.  At the time Guardian writer Jemima Kiss said that she was “in two minds about the creation of a Twitter Correspondent.”

An internal Sky News memo obtained by Techcrunch at the time highlighted how the editorial team saw that news stories were breaking on Twitter thanks to users who eye-witnessed stories and then reported them to their followers.  Ruth Barnett, who today is the channel’s Online Politics Producer, was chosen as their Twitter correspondent.

I meet with Sky News Executive Editor Chris Birkett earlier this week, who confirmed that searching for news on Twitter and other social media platforms is now part of every journalist’s remit at Sky News.  I asked Chris about the impact that social media’s had on its newsgathering and content promotion operation.

Birkett said that their web and online team are responsible amongst other things for verifying content sent in to the newsroom through social media channels.  Birkett added that the number of users accessing Sky News online was being challenged by those who got the outlets news through their social media feeds.

Sky News Executive Editor Chris Birkett

Today the Sky News website has an audience reach of c.7.5 million unique users – 3.3 million in Europe and a further 4.2 million in other markets around the world.  Their iPhone app has been downloaded 2 million times, with Birkett confirming a “massive rise in users accessing the site through mobile devices,” something that is encouraging the news outlet to make it’s app available on other platforms, such Android, which recently announced it supported flash video.

Birkett noted that 18,000 people watched the Sky News Leader’s Debate from their smartphone.  We were also shown the development room where they were testing their forthcoming iPad app.

The one disappointment from a mobile aspect was that while the iPhone app has the facility for users to send in user generated content (ugc) the numbers have not yet excited editorial staff.  ‘Not yet’ being the watchword.

Asked if Sky News had benefited from The Times and Sunday Times paywall Birkett said that there didn’t appear to be a surge in traffic, which leaves one to question where Times Online users gone to?  Birkett did say though that Sky News has 650 staff – a lot less than the BBC, 500 of which are at the Sky News Centre and of which 150 are journalists.  The Times and Sunday Times meanwhile have dedicated 700 journalists, allowing the Wapping titles to provide the in-depth comment and analysis while Sky News focus on short video.

We are looking forward to another visit and further insight from Sky News.