Online Privacy

 Technology has a vital impact on our lives as we use our phones, laptops, and tablets on a day-to-day basis. We make social media accounts and google accounts that hold and contain valuable information that includes private information. What we do not realize is that it can be dangerous and harmful when we encounter privacy violations. Viruses and hackers get into your accounts which can make your life miserable when a stranger has full control over your important information. It is important to protect our privacy to ensure that we have safety and human dignity. Online privacy issues can affect anyone and everyone as privacy concerns continue to increase when we continue to use technological advancements.

From the TED Talk, "Think your email's private? think again", Andy Yen discusses how there is an astounding amount of personal information online. Our data continues to last forever, even when we are no longer on earth. In our generation, we are being taught to share information online. On Facebook, we communicate with our friends and families as we share pictures and information of our lives. Social media has become an outlet for people to talk about information that should be kept private because you never know who is watching or what hackers and spies could be trying to take your information. The rapid increase in technological innovations has outpaced the protection of privacy. Digital footprints are easily tracked and handled by corporations, as well as the government. Digital footprints are consistently and rapidly growing. It contains large amounts of data that contain the most intimate and personal aspects of our everyday lives. 

Online privacy issues affect me in many ways. I am always on social media as it is a big part of my life. I share information about myself online whether that is Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. I am more likely to be a target for hackers and people online who can easily take and use my information. My Instagram account has been hacked several times and the only way I can get it back is to change my password. Nowadays, it is hard to freely develop and openly talk about my personality without someone taking that information and ruining my reputation or boundaries. These issues affect my friends and families when they all have phones and technological devices. One of my family members has dealt with surveillance issues in our phones. In the Ted Talk, "How to avoid surveillance... with the phone in your pocket", Christopher Soghoian talks about how surveillance backdoors are built into the phone system by default to allow governments to listen in on everything we see and do. We are never safe in these types of situations and every conversation and move we make is being watched and recorded. Dangerous hackers and the government agencies are violating our privacy to the point where we have to cover our cameras on our phones and laptops so we cannot be seen. 

The government should be educating the public. Everyone can be easily gullible when it comes to hackers and stolen information. In addition to ensuring the businesses disclose any potential privacy or security issues and follow their states rules, the government should safeguard its own network. The government should not be destroying our privacy as they should be in charge of protecting our information that is held online. The main issue with our government is that they are taking data from us without our permission. We are being watched and monitored with our emails and online activity. The government needs to secure our information without opening or sharing our information. The government should take cautious steps in order for our online security to be secure. Political reform is required. Governments will simply be one step ahead by learning how to crack the technologies if we try to rely solely on technical answers. Companies must do their part as well as stand up. By encouraging governments to implement these changes, spending more in device security, and by default protecting data sent to and received from connected devices.

A major and important way of protecting ourselves from invasions of privacy is to clear our search history. I clear my search history almost every hour. One thing I need to work on that can protect my privacy is to not overshare information about myself online. It is hard to do that because I like to overshare. When I go on Facebook, I like to tell people that it is my birthday and what I did that day.  We need to be more cautious about posting and sharing personal information online because we never know who might be watching. We should deactivate and ignore the ability to save our password. When we log into Google or a social media account, we sometimes get a feature that allows us to save our password. This can increase your chances of privacy invasions, so ignoring this conveniency can save you from trouble. One thing I have done recently is deleting apps I do not use. I delete my apps to improve the performance of my phone. I never realize that removing apps can also help with security flaws. We should limit the apps that we use so we do not receive any updates or cookies from websites that can be a threat for getting private information from your device. Accounts that are private can be a more trustful way when we limit who sees your content and information. Private accounts have to accept a follow request in order for the person to see their account. This is a safe way for people to cut off the public viewings and share content with people that they know personally. Most importantly, be careful where you click. Devices can easily get viruses that can steal your information. Always be aware of what websites you are using and research what browsers and search engines are reliable. 

Privacy online has always been a significant issue. Privacy is important for keeping our information safe and hidden from the evil world. Online privacy protects our safety from not just online, but in public. In our homes, we do not want anyone coming to our doorsteps because they found out private information that was stored online. It is so easy to share our locations, especially on Snapchat. I can look at people's locations on Snapchat by going to an icon called snap maps. I have that option hidden so no one can see where I am at, but a lot of my friends and random people I have on Snapchat have that option on. It is scary how easily we can locate someone and see where they are from or what they are doing at an exact moment. Privacy protects us as a society and as individuals. Data mining is a way for your data to be stolen when someone tries to get as much information out of you as possible. Data can be stolen in a matter of seconds, and we need to be aware of the ways in which we can limit how much information we store online and how we can protect ourselves and society.