Abuse of the Law: When Social Media Goes Rogue - by Ben Westwood

For anyone that may have been following any of my recent work, or for those that haven't, you may have noticed the concerns that I've been expressing about 'Internet Auditors'.

If you're confused then I'm not talking about people that audit websites, and neither am I talking about hired professional auditors that visit companies. What I'm talking about is a growing phenomenon on the internet of people visiting various sites including factories , police stations, fire stations, national trust sites among other places with the sole intention of filming staff and others with numerous cameras and drones under the guise of citizen journalism.

In my book Abuse of The Law: When Social Media Goes Rogue I highlight various safeguarding and privacy concerns which I think may be overlooked by the many thousands of people supporting this growing phenomenon.

I was ever-more encouraged to write the book upon seeing a number of 'auditors' turning up to Alton Towers theme parks and were uploading details of security points and security staff names to the viewers. I believe in the wrong hands this information can be used for nefarious purposes.

With having opened a petition on change.org people might think I'm asking for some sort of new authoritian law or something, and might be off put that my petition is a call-out to the government to act.

What I think a lot of people might not be seeing is though, is all I'm asking is that we safeguard and keep precious the privacy and safeguarding etiquette that we've been used to for some time.

What I'm asking is , is this - if privacy and safeguarding etiquette isn't respected when it comes to filming others, including children, and is left unchallenged - then are we rapidly heading to a point where anyone can follow and film you and there's nothing that you can do about it?

The audit movements slogan is 'PINAC' which stands for 'Photography Is Not A Crime' - but in my book I talk about the possibility of over recognisance missions perhaps being an actual possibility, or perhaps even sinister links.

I've been shouting out for a while now that SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT, in which I detail my concerns about this rapidly growing phenomenon.

Available in Kindle and Paperback at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Abuse-Law-Social-Media-Rogue/dp/B0DK5Y9JLV