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Dutch TV program promoting online privacy ironically violates it for up to ten people

Image via NU.nl

In what can only be described as ironic, a program that aired on Dutch television by broadcaster AVROTROS on Monday night to test the knowledge of citizens' own privacy tools online, ended the show by violating the privacy rights of at least ten different people, by airing images saved to the Instagram accounts of the victims.

To test the privacy knowledge of the studio audience and watchers at home, the program employed the services of self-titled "ethical hacker", Wouter Slotboom, to give weight and examples of where lack of taking care of privacy online can lead to identity theft and other things. Among the images shown off by Slotboom were driving licenses and keys, which could theoretically be copied to facilitate a burglary of one's home or other items.

Although parts of the driving licenses that were shown had sections blurred out, keys did not, as well as the full profile information of the "shamed" Instagram users used as examples on live TV. Singer songwriter, Roos Blufpand, said, "It's quite ironic that a program on privacy violated my privacy", and that she was only alerted to it due to followers commenting that the keys were put on live TV. Blufpand also said that the broadcaster did not ask permission to use the image; two other victims that were shown on the program told the NU.nl website that they also did not give permission and weren't approached by the broadcaster.

Following complaints, the program has been pulled for online viewing, but AVROTROS suggested that they might try and reinstate the program with the privacy violations edited out. It has already been watched by 411,000 people.

Source: NU.nl (Dutch)

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