Promoting Islamic Ethics on Privacy in Digital Social Network For User Data Protection and Trust
Norita Md Norwawi1, Najwa Hayaati Mohd Alwi, Roesnita Ismail, Fauziah Wahid & Nader M. Alkaenay
Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia Abstract
Social and political behaviour relies much on communication. However in Islamic teaching, these human to human behaviours need to comply with the al-Quran and Sunnah that will be realized as adab and akhlaq or in other words ethics. This human to human relationship is founded by human to Allah relationship that will give rise to ibadah and taqwa. In Islam , privacy of another person is held in high respect. One should not pry in another person personal life or space because it is considered unethical thus not a good sign of taqwa. In the digital world, with the advancement of Internet that gave birth to social network, ethics, privacy and security is important concern. This study looks at privacy and security from the Islamic perspectives. A survey was conducted with 200 social network users using snowball sampling to find put their awareness of privacy and security related issues on social network. The study showed that majority of users are not aware even some do not even bother on the privacy and security issues.
Thus, a user oriented privacy model was proposed that will protect users information by default unless the user set it otherwise. It will give more control to users on what to share on the social media with the public.
Keywords: digital Islam, social network, social media, privacy, security INTRODUCTION
The central belief of a Muslim is the relationship with Allah SWT because Allah is considered to be beyond human comprehension, Muslims do not depict Allah SWT (The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, 2014). One verse that shows the closeness of Allah and a human is shown in al-Quran :
“And indeed! We have created man, and We know the promptings of his soul, and We (by Our Knowledge) are closer to him than his jugular vein.
(Surah Qaaf: 16)
1 Corresponding author : Norita Md Norwawi, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, e-mail : [email protected]
In this verse, it reminded human that Allah SWT is closer to a human than the vital vein and therefore, Allah SWT knows everything about the human soul.
In the Islamic framework, only Allah SWT is the closest to a human being and has intimate knowledge of the internal life of all humans.
JAKIM (2010) clarify that al-Quran sets out the principles for creating a system that regulates the human relationship with Allah SWT through ibadah (worship) and takwa (devotion) as well as systems that regulate the relationship between man and man. This system assures akhlak (character) based relations can liberate humanity from the disgrace and to increase their prestige and honor toward glory. Focusing on specific ibadah in strengthening our relationship with Allah SWT, for example through solat, zikir, puasa and others, we should not ignore the responsibility in relationships with men that is also considered as ibadah, if it is conducted with the intention to carry out orders and instructions for the sake of Allah. This is proven in the following Al-Quran verse
“Overshadowed by ignominy (in everyway) are they wherever they may be, unless they make a covenant with Allah or with man.”
( Ali Imraan : 112) In general, the gist of the relationship between men and Allah and the relationship between man and man involves communication. Through the relationship between men and Allah, communication was conducted through ibadah and takwa. Meanwhile, as for the relationship between a man and other man was performed based on akhlak and brothership as mentioned in the Al-Quran :
“Truly the believers are brothers. Make peace among your brothers (who are fighting); and remain conscious of Allah, so that you may be shown mercy”.
(Al Hujuraat : 10) This is further supported by Mahmoud (2002), where he explained that Islam is a communication-based religion. The basic miracle of al-Quran lies in its extreme eloquence and literary sophistication that none of the acknowledged Arab poets and orators could match. All through the verses of the al- Quran, reference is continuously made to the importance of communication for the call to Islam. The two basic guides of Islamic social and political behaviour, al-Quran and Sunnah, are communication based. Political and social communication in the early Islamic community was oral, where later followed by written communication. The latest method of communication
today is through Information Communication Technology (ICT), where communication is being conducted digitally on the Internet.
DIGITAL ISLAM
Today, everyone is said living in the digital age. Communication has become easy where people can communicate using the information and communication technologies. Many are connected to the computer and internet for 2 reasons: the information and entertainment. Borderless communication can easily occur using various social media and network such as facebook, instagram and etc. This has open to a platform for meeting and get to know people around the world. Allah has asserted in teh Al-Quran for Muslim to mingle with others:
“O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)”
(Al- Hujuraat 13) Many has increase their level of computer and digital literacy, however the various/ explosion sources on the Internet need to be carefully monitored.
The challenges to the new civilization development are due to the multiple resources and the ability of mankind to filter the best content that match the human nature. Therefore we need principles and guidelines in maintaining Islam and its value in this new digital era. Despite of the claim that there is no definite definition for Islam Digital due to its interpretation could be in various perspectives (Bunt, 2009), Zulkiple Abdul Ghani(2010) concluded that digital Islam refers to the computing process performed by every Muslim using mind driven source of revelation and electronically assisted to generate wisdom to seek the pleasure of Allah and gain the real happiness in this world and the hereafter as mentioned in
“O ye who believe! Avoid suspicion as much (as possible): for suspicion in some cases is a sin: And spy not on each other behind their backs. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? Nay, ye would abhor it...But fear Allah. For Allah is Oft Returning, Most Merciful.
(Al-Hujuraat: 6)
RELATED ISSUES ON DIGITAL SOCIAL NETWORK Digital social network are services or platform provided for effective communication and engagement. It is also known as social media referring to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social networking websites has dramatically influenced and changed the way users build connections and relationships among each others. Social networks store information remotely, rather than on a user’s personal computer. Social networking can be used to keep in touch with friends, make new contacts and find people with similar interests and ideas. The online communities can be broken down into major categories including informational, professional, educational, hobbies, academic and news related.
However according to O’Keeffe and Clarke-Pearson (2011), this method of engagement and communication has bring some issues such as cyberbullying,
“Facebook depression,” sexting, and exposure to inappropriate content among children and adolescents. These issues lead to new challenges related to privacy, security, data management, accessibility, social inclusion, governance, and other information policy issues (Bertot 2012). Mohamad Fauzan (2003) proposed a model for ethics, privacy and security from the Islamic perspectives as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Model for Ethics, Security and Privacy from the Islamic Perspective (Mohamad Fauzan, 2013)
Ethics focused on the adab and akhlaq in general. According to Abdul Kadar (2013), privacy refers to the right to protect personal information from being misused and right of people not to reveal information. Security on the Internet and computer networks, on the other hand is concern on the unauthorized access and manipulation by intruders. From the Information security management views, it has been suggested access control as one of domain that need to be emphasize in ensuring the privacy, confidetiality
and safety of information. Access controls are designed to make sure the information are shared with the people who have the right to access and privileges.
The issue of privacy within social networking sites is often not expected or is undefined. Privacy issues in the social networks is not the same in other websites because the information can be shared among users. For instance when a user post photographs and personal information on the Facebook, these information could be shared with millions of people around the world if their privacy settings is open to the public.
Another privacy issue of the social networks is the unawareness of the privacy terms of agreement agreed upon when registering as a member. For instance, the social network claims all of the intellectual property rights on all content that users upload even if the user decides to terminate his or her account. Apart from that, most of these social networks unintentionally share our personal and private information to the third party advertising and tracking sites. Individual data is openhandedly provided and limiting privacy preferences are cautiously used. Due to the variety and richness of personal information disclosed in a social network profiles, their visibility, their public linkages to the member’s real identities, and the scope of the network, users may put themselves at risk for a variety of attacks on their physical and online nature. It raises the issue of missusing the users’ private information and unintended information leakage over the networks. The use of mobile devices has potentially bring in a new privacy concerns for mobile social networks system especially on the user presence and geographic location.
The disclosure of the users’ most recent location to another person may poses them to cyberstalking and physical threats. The questions is now how can we protect users personnel information by default and to give users more control on setting up the privacy according to their needs?
SOCIAL NETWORK PRIVACY MODEL FROM THE ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVES
The basic guiding principles in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) from the Islamic perpectives, must be based from al-Qur’an as the authoritative sources of kowledge and as-Sunnah (Mohamad Fauzan, 2013). Ethics in ICT based on the Islamic point of views must covers the hardware, software as well as its socialware and heartware. From the Islamic perspective, for security, Muslims should take precautionary steps to avoid any physical or emotional damage. Allah says
“O believers! Do not enter houses other than your own until you have sought permission and greeted their inmates “
(An-Nur: 27) The Islamic approach to the rights of privacy under the divine principles is that you are not allowed to access the properties of others without their permission nor can we pry and disclose others privacy. Allah warned
“O believers! Avoid immoderate suspicion, for in some cases suspicion is a sin, Do not spy on one another”
(Al-Hujurat: 12) Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) said:
“O people, who have professed belief verbally, but faith has not yet entered your hearts: Do not pry into the affairs ofthe Muslims, for he who will pry into the affairs of theMuslims, Allah will pry into his affairs, and he whom Allah follows inquisitively, is disgraced by Him in his own house”
(Abu Dawud) The prophet warned us againts prying into the affairs of the Muslims and Allah is not please with this unethical conduct, transgressing into other private property without permission and if permitted, need to be observant of the limit of the given permission. In the context of information security, it refers to ways of protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data from accidental or intentional misuse.
Privacy refers to the right or opportunity to decide who has access to personal information, how the information is being used and how the information can be kept from being misused. It is very clear that without permission of the owner, any information cannot be accessed or used. Allah says in His holy book:
“O believers! Do not enter houses other than your own until you have sought permission and greeted their inmates”
(An-Nur: 27) In this digital world, a user should be aware of the limit of the given permission to assess, copy, download and share any contents (i.e. photos or files) without a prior permission of the owner. Islam also teaches Muslims to respect the privacy of others. The use of social networks allow us for easy exchange of information and communication at anytime and anywhere.
Thus, there is increased risks of violating the privacy of individuals and groups. Therefore, all online social media users should know how to protect and ensure the privacy and integrity of their personal data from unauthorized access or accidental disclosure to inappropriate individuals.
In Islam any act that leads to sin is also sinful and must be avoided. If a social networking site is used to communicate with the opposite sex who is not his blood relatives (Mahram) then this is prohibited (Ashitari, et al., 2009 in Nassar (2013)). Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) said:
“The fornication of the two eyes is an evil glance. The fornication of the two ears is the obscene talk. The fornication of the tongue and hand is the touch and grasp. And the fornication of the two feet is the steps taken towards evil. The heart desires and longs and the private parts abide with or does contrary to it”.
(Mishkat ul Masabih, Abu Dawood) This is because, communicating, sharing or looking pictures of opposite sex with lust on the Internet is all forbidden. As He said in the holy Quran:
“O you, who have believed, enter into Islam completely (and perfectly) and do not follow the footsteps of Satan (Devil). Indeed, he is to you a clear enemy.”
(Al-Baqarah: 208) Islam highlights the importance of privacy in all aspect of life especially on akhlaq. Both the Quran and the Holy Prophet have told Muslims that the best among them is that person who shows the best behaviour towards other people. As the Prophet Mohammad (SAW) said a very good Muslim a the one who avoids harming the Muslims with his tongue and hands (Sahih Bukhari, Book 2, Hadith 10). In the words of the Holy Quran, Allah says
“O you who believe! keep your duty to Allah and speak straight, true words.”
(Al-Ahzab :70) Thus, Islam prohibits the use of ICT in ways that may result any harm to any anybody. For examples, using Facebook TO share useless or false information, promote illicit photos or music videos, spend so much time online and neglecting other important duties. Harmful actions also include intentional destruction or modification of files and programs leading to serious loss of resources or unnecessary expenditure of human resources such as the time and effort required to recover from the malware effects (Abdul Kadar, 2013).
USERS’ PERCEPTION ON PRIVACY AND SECURITY OF SOCIAL NETWORK SITES
Appreciating the fact that privacy is considered with high esteem is Islam, we would like to investigate users awareness on the privacy and security on using the social media. This study presents a survey on 200 social network users perception on privacy and security of online social network sites. The respondents were selected randomly from different part of the world using a snowball rolling sampling, a non – probability sampling technique. Snowball sampling and respondent-driven sampling also allows researchers to make estimates about the social network connecting the hidden population to ask them on the privacy of the existing social networks.
161 questionnaires were filled correctly and returned (80%). Almost 57% of the respondents were males and nearly 43% were females .Approximately 83% of the respondents were in the age group 18 to 29 years old and 15%
age between 30 to 49.
Based on the survey, 64% of respondents have a bachelor degree and 23%
have post-graduate degree. The familiarity level with social network is indicated by the years of using Internet. Users that use Internet for more than 10 years is 49% where 40 % claimed moderately familiar and 44%
very familiar with the social network. Besides that, 98% respondents use Facebook and 57 % use IslamTag and 52% Twitter.
Table 1 shows the level of respondents awareness on privacy terms of conditions. 44% claimed they are moderately familiar with the features and updates in social network privacy.
Table 1: Users familiarity on social network privacy
This was proven to the fact that 80% of them restrict access to some part of their profile. However only 41% change their privacy setting occasionally, only if anything happened and 40% rarely change their privacy setting which
is also true for the security and account setting. Next, figure 2 illustrate the sharing nature of humans being. We found out that 61% claimed that they sometimes share accurate information and photos to the public and without any kind of restriction. Only 16% said that they never share accurate information about themselves where as 23% share all the time.
Figure 2 : Sharing of information behaviour such as photos .However, the awareness level on sharing their location using geo information on their phone or laptop is very high as shown in Table 2. About 17% of respondents felt that they need to share their location and where their privacy of personal information is not protected at all does not bother them. 30%
of respondent willing to share their location if they uses mobile phone.
However, 53% of respondent need some privacy by not sharing their location and slightly protected
Table 2: Users sharing behaviour on social network privacy When it comes to security and protecting data, usually we will try our best level to secure or data especially when dealing with money. However when it comes to information we forget that it has a value. Figure 3 shows that majority, i.e 68%, do not bother about protecting and using a complex password whereas 32% use complex password that combined letters, numbers and symbols..
Figure 3 : Usage of complex Password
Upon the same note, only 52% users lock their mobile phones with passcode and 48% leave their info wide open
Figure 4: Usage of Passcode in Phones
Even though majority are careless about security and privacy, they are still aware of every issues in social network. Figure 5 illustrated that 60%
of respondent are aware of employee checks on social network for their background but still expose their information publicly even though they were informed that social networks does not give priority to ones privacy and security.
Figure 5: The awareness level of employees check on background
Currently, social network privacy model is maintained and controlled by developers. Only expert users will choose their setting and adjust it according to their needs. However, this study proposed that the developers will develop a set of privacy settings that protect users information as depicted in Figure 6. However it can be customized by users with their own setting. The current model called nested or Multilevel privacy setting gives the user the ability to set the privacy to each category. The default built in features should be initially private that the user can set to public or keep it to themselves.
IslamTag, a social network established in 2010 adopt this model to protect the personnel information of users unless they set it otherwise according to their owwn wish and needs.
Figure 6: User oriented model (Nested model)
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
The importance of online social networks sites to human social development cannot be over reduced but it needs an effcient method to manage the privacy and security to promote ethical use of information while interacting to each other freely, conduct businesses and above all serve as a media for all. Therefore, this study proposed that social network developers need to understand the concept of privacy and to create a model for privacy to suit the needs of users and to protect their data. Based on the survey on 200 respondents, majority are not aware of the issues of privacy and security
threat that were usually vulnerable to online social networks environment. In addition to that they continue to use social networking sites despite their lack of understanding on the sites privacy and security policy that usually lead to the conceding of their personal identification secrecy. Hence, this study proposed a user oriented privacy model that can protect user’s information as well as increase the trust in social networks developers.
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