Meerkat and Periscope: Are Privacy Pros Ready for the Consequences of Live Streaming?

[Commentary] I’m not saying that Periscope is a bad, privacy-invading social network; but Periscope, and its less fortunate cousin, Meerkat, can easily become a bad, privacy-invading social network. I mean, just look at Periscope's logo: It’s an eyeball within a location sign. These are services that can easily be manipulated for creepy purposes, or allow users to unwittingly compromise their privacy, or of the privacy of those around them.

Believe it: These live-video services will be nearly ubiquitously built into all kinds of apps and services soon, and could affect privacy pros in unexpected ways. Periscope, much like its parent company, Twitter, posts broadcast data to the public by default. “This includes the metadata provided with your broadcast, such as when and where you broadcast,” Periscope’s privacy policy states. And though the aim of the service is to provide live streaming, users can upload the video to their Twitter streams for others to watch within 24 hours of the recording, or until the user deletes the archived broadcast. Maybe TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez is right, maybe our cultural mindset has changed enough to embrace this public performance—but are privacy pros or regulatory authorities prepared for everything else that comes with it?