BBC Says It May Contact Your Boss If You Post Comments It Finds Problematic

It's readily available if you google my name and usernames; available in my profile.

Indeed. It seems that some people aren't twigging that the text quoted is part of a privacy policy. It's trying to explain one set of circumstances where the BBC will use and share "personal information" with others and what that may involve if one is (say) using the computers where one works or attends school and that's where tracking back one's IP address leads.

Compare Google's Privacy policy:

> We will share personal information with companies, organisations or individuals outside Google if we have a belief in good faith that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

> + meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.

> + enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.

Or Facebook's:

> We may also access, preserve and share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to: detect, prevent and address fraud and other illegal activity; to protect ourselves, you and others, including as part of investigations; or to prevent death or imminent bodily harm.

Or Apple's:

> We may also disclose information about you if we determine that disclosure is reasonably necessary to enforce our terms and conditions or protect our operations or users.

Or Reddit's:

> We may share information if we believe your actions are inconsistent with our user agreements, rules, or other Reddit policies, or to protect the rights, property, and safety of ourselves and others;

Ironically, the BBC is somewhat clearer about whom the information might end up being disclosed to.

The BBC. Someone's website isn't a public place. This isn't free speech.

That's kinda the point, thank you very much.

There is a grey area of behaviour that cannot be pinned down with a blunt instrument like criminal law. These behaviours have traditionally been handled by the people witnessing them, and with an equally large spectrum of instruments from just a frown to social exclusion, etc.

So, to directly answer your question: nobody and everybody. By letting the people you actually interact with on a day-to-day basis know what you're writing online, the mechanisms of social control continue to function as they always have.

It's not like fast food restaurants at all. This is a privacy policy. And it is like (say) the privacy policy that covers people with accounts at Japan Today, which says:

> We reserve the right to use or share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of Japan Today Terms of Use, or as otherwise required by law.

The difference is that unlike Japan Today, and other privacy policies mentioned elsewhere on this page, the BBC is trying to tell you whom the information will be disclosed to, pursuant to the guidelines from the U.K. Information Commissioner on privacy policies, but somewhat ineptly. Japan Today tells you that it may "share information", but nothing whatsoever about whom that is likely to be with. The BBC is trying to tell you whom it is likely to be sharing information with.

And it should come as no surprise that if you are posting from a work computer, one of the people it is going to be sharing the information with is the company that your IP address backtracks to.