What Happened to Privacy?
In the digital age, people create personal data that is collected under one’s digital footprint. As Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union informed BBC News, every single person’s private information is being collected through smart devices by government agencies and corporations, and these entities sell this data to other strangers. Wizner explains how these entities, particularly Google and Facebook, use this data for economic means, such as predicting customers’ purchases. Although some may accept the loss in privacy, Wizner remarks that each individual has information that they would never share to others because it would ruin their reputation and finances[1].
Furthermore, people are losing their privacy at an alarming rate, but lawmakers have done little to stop it. As stated by Shout Out UK, legislators who have struggled to keep pace with the rate of data collection are starting to enact some laws to protect privacy rights. Social media companies like Facebook are especially accountable to selling data[2]. Gus Hosein, the head of Privacy National, a pro-privacy organization, remarked to BBC News about how lobbyists in the U.S. are protecting tech companies that sell customers’ personal information for profit--without customers’ knowledge, of course. As per Hosein, Europe, in contrast, has passed the General Data Protection Regulation, which is a start in regulating the collection of personal data[1].
The Severity of It All
The vast majority of people do not understand the severity of the accessibility to their personal data. As stated by Shout Out UK, details of a person’s life can be accessed by a simple Google search of the person’s name due to large amounts of social media posts that display his or her information on the Web. When a person fails to take charge and monitor their privacy settings, their information will be readily available to be exploited for profit or other motives[2]. BBC News reports that Svea Eckart, a journalist for ARD, Germany’s national broadcaster, conducted an experiment in which she bought information of customers from some companies. Eckart discovered shocking information from this data, including a judge’s porn history, a senior executive’s finances, and confidential information belonging to a criminal investigation. The disturbing factor is that the companies that sold this data obtained it through the plug-ins that customers downloaded onto their devices. Furthermore, the companies had illicitly sold this data without the customers’ knowledge or consent. Eckart reports that the companies have not been held liable for the breach in privacy[1].
Furthermore, data breaches are occurring at an alarming rate because of the weak security companies put in place to protect data. Soo Youn of ABC News explains that three billion customers of Yahoo had their information leaked in 2013 including passwords, phone numbers, and email addresses, but Verizon, the company that currently owns it, waited four years later to inform customers[3]. As per BBC News, the financial information of one hundred forty-three million Americans was leaked when the credit agency Equifax was breached[4]. BBC News comments about how these cyberattacks occur almost every week. Therefore, one should not rely on the security of a company to protect their information and instead take it into their own hands[1]. One should release personal information to as few companies as possible in order to minimize the rate at which their data is spread; unfortunately, following this advice is a difficult task in today’s world.