Invasion of Privacy in Society Today
In today's blog post, I will be reflecting on a few TEDTalk videos I watched that discuss how media platforms tend to invade our privacy with their technology. After watching four videos detailing how technology invades our privacy, I will be sharing my feelings about the overall arching idea of technology possibly being too powerful and actually having a more negative affect on our daily lives than we are knowledgable of.
Video 1: Juan Enriquez
In the first video, the speaker, Juan Enriquez, compares how platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, cell phones, GPS, and many more are like "electronic tattoos": they provide as much information about who and what you are as any tattoo would. With that remark, he is raising a very strong point. There is such a thing as a digital footprint; things posted, liked, shared, and commented on stay with you throughout the rest of your life with these platforms, whether you like it to or not. Not only that, but the main point Enriquez is making is that these platforms have so much information on you that they could create an entire portfolio just with a few slivers of information. How scary is that?!
In addition, he gives examples of the advancement in facial recognition--almost 88% accurate most of the time--and how with a simple picture, facial recognition technology can recognize those faces in the photo and identify each and every person there. A company named "Face.com" was sold to Facebook, and it contained over 18 billion faces in its system from facial recognition. It is terrifying to think that my face is located somewhere in Facebook's database and how many people have access to seeing what I look like and can identify me across numerous different platforms.
Overall, Juan Enriquez creates the absolute perfect comparison of our presence on digital platforms: Electronic tattoos. His video teaches me to be more aware and cautious about my presence on social media platforms and to be careful with what information I share, because somewhere out there, someone has access to that information and can easily profile me.
Video 2: Catherine Crump
In the second video featuring the speaker Catherine Crump describes how GPS locations allow the government to basically have a detailed portrait of who you are, what you do, your interests, and how you function in everyday life--just based on where you go. Crump states that "thanks to modern technology, the government knows way too much about what happens behind closed doors and local police departments make decisions about who they think you are based on this information."
Something that I had not even thought of are the cameras spread across thousands of streets across the country that are capable of reading license plates. While I completely agree with Crump's idea that police departments know too much about us, I view it as a form of protection. Because police departments know this information, I feel safer knowing that they can make a profile of me, especially since I am not the type to do anything illegal. Maybe for some who prefer to keep their lives private or maybe even those that prefer to be anonymous in order to commit crimes may feel very uncomfortable and unsettled by this idea.
However, coming from someone who feels safe with majority of police departments, I have to say I disagree with the idea that it is an uncomfortable contract that we sign as citizens in the United States.
While I disagree with the main idea that it is "unlawful" for police departments to hold onto information about everyday citizens, I have to say that it does make me uncomfortable that they have information on me, despite me doing nothing wrong. However, I am the kind of person who does not like the idea of the government having that information when they are not the ones that technically enforce the law like police officers do. Yes, the government is the one enforcing laws, but I view police officers as everyday citizens like me and you, but they just have more power.
I cannot explain it well, but I view the government as a more controlling power and police officers more checking citizens and making sure they are following the laws. I have never viewed police officers in general as negative and if anything, I view them as keeping the streets safe and preventing and resolving crime. Unfortunately, there are those police officers that are corrupt and abuse their power to take advantage of and wrongly treat citizens.
In the end, I completely see where Catherine Crump is coming from and I do not like the idea of police departments having technology that powerful and them having the ability to store data about me in their systems, but I have to say I feel less threatened by it.
Video 3: Christopher Soghoian
The third video is with speaker Christopher Soghoian, who discusses how surveillance has happened for more than 100 years, supplied by telephone companies that can wiretap into phone calls. He describes how telephone companies have built surveillance features into the very core of their networks.
The idea of this is quite horrifying, and come to think of it, I have always thought about how unsettling that would be if it were to happen to me. I know that I definitely disagree with the idea that someone should be capable of listening in on a phone call that is happening in private, especially if it is about information that me or someone else does not want to be shared.
Soghoian makes a good point that it does not necessarily have to be someone you know; it could be your own government or a different government, or even someone like a hacker, criminal, or stalker. The thought of this makes me uneasy to think that information I want to discuss in private and I believe is private may not be after all.
His video takes a turn, where he begins listing how Apple and Facebook have created encryptions that make it extremely difficult for anyone to wiretap into messages, phone calls, and Facetime calls. And after more than 100 years, the government finally cannot access information through wiretapping, which Soghoian says they are not happy about. According to Soghoian, "what upsets them the most is that the tech companies have built encryption features into their products and turned them on by default. It's the default piece that matters. In short, the tech companies have democratized encryption. And so, government officials like British Prime Minister David Cameron, they believe that all communications--emails, texts, voice calls--all of these should be available to governments, and encryption is making that difficult." From this statement, I can conclude that Soghoian is making an inference that the government is upset and enraged that it cannot monitor its citizens, and this seems to be a world-wide belief.
He then makes the argument that everyone uses the exact same devices and that there is no such thing as a seperate device that the government can intercept. Now, majority of people want the safety of the government being able to track down and stop hackers, criminals, and other threats, but if they were able to do that, then everyone would be at risk of the government's ability to tap into their devices.
To conclude, there really is no winning with this. If we do not allow the government to tap into all devices and monitor what is going on, then we run the risk of criminals, terrorists, and other threats getting away with their cyber presence. But if we do let the government tap into our devices, then we run the risk of the government being able to spy on all its citizens, not just the bad ones.
Video 4: Darieth Chisolm (unable to link video here)
In the fourth and final video, Darieth Chisolm, the speaker in the video, discusses how the internet, because of how vast it is, can have content on it that is on display against your will. She was a victim of "revenge porn" or as she calls it, "digital domestic violence," and through talking about this trauma, she makes the argument that the government needs to put more laws in place that protect and defend against acts such as this. Unfortunately, only 40 states in the US have laws that somewhat fight against this issue, majority of which are misdemeanor charges. Because of the lack of attention this worldwide issue has gotten, there are little to no consequences for those who commit this heinous act, and there are no solutions to stop it currently--without it costing thousands of dollars and countless hours of waiting. Even then, there is no true solution to this yet.
However, if the government can put in place laws that actually help protect victims against this crime and allows punishments for those who commit the crime, there may be some resolution in this. It is terrifying to think that not only would someone be capable of committing an act like that, but the internet having that content and millions having the ability to view it. Even once it is deleted or removed from the internet, it really is never officially 'removed.' Just like a digital footprint, there is some data somewhere that contains that content, someone may have downloaded it and can share it from there, and the fact that the internet was even able to take in that content should be criticized and a solution should be found.
Reflection
Overall, all the issues mentioned in the videos have been issues that have crossed my mind, especially the idea of wiretapping into devices. As a Sci-Fi novel enthusiast, the idea that the government could have as much power as they did in the book 1984 by George Orwell is horrific to think of. In the novel, the government has surveillance everywhere and can hear every conversation of every citizen through every device. If the government were to approve a law that allows them to tap into devices, I know I personally would be very concerned about my privacy and the government invading it. I know such things as data being stored in all types of different platforms concerns me for my family and myself because god forbid something were to happen to their information and they face the problem of identity theft or other major crimes that could affect their lives heavily.
For all these issues, I believe that the government should make laws that prevent others from, for example, having information available to them from data stored on the internet, as well as having the ability to post content about others against their will. I believe for both of those, there needs to be some way to monitor that and prevent it from happening.
I believe some ways to protect ourselves would be to simply not share personal information on the internet, make accounts private to only you and people you know, as well as not sharing pictures that may put you in a vulnerable state unwillingly. To be honest, there really is no way to fully and completely protect ourselves from these issues due to the ability that technology has. If we were to stop using technology all together--especially the internet--that problem would likely be solved. But, to no surprise, that will likely never happen, and definitely not happen anytime soon. Perhaps in the future, there will be some sort of solution to all these issues mentioned, but until then, we have to try to survive with these problems.
Conclusion
To conclude, all the topics mentioned in the TEDTalk videos really opened my eyes to not only how vast the internet is and how vulnerable we are to it, but how much of our privacy we really have. Majority of the population on earth no longer has that full 'privacy' and pretty much anyone can find information about everyone. Technology is a scary thing...
Next week, I will be sharing information about some historic inventions that my peers did research on and I will be reflecting on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment