“Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for, in plain language, and repeatedly. I believe people are smart. Some people want to share more than other people do. Ask them.” – Steve Jobs
Today you can guarantee that almost every website or application we use will track our online activity and collect data. This creates tension between the conflicting goals of right to privacy and widespread access to technology and digital tools that are fueling the digital revolution. The continuing boom in the digital economy has brought about a relatively new set of ethical and juridical issues that affect anyone and everyone.
The right to privacy is becoming a significant hindrance to the accessibility of the world’s newest technology innovations. The legal right to privacy is constitutionally protected in most democratic societies. Many applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram are finding themselves in breach of the right to privacy.
Many tech giants worldwide have become data miners, thus collecting data of a person’s ways of life, behaviors, and lifestyle. For one to use these new applications and systems, one is required first to reveal sensitive information. The big questions being pondered across the globe are: How secure is the information we give out online? What do they use it for? Is it a must for one to reveal all the sensitive information to access and benefit from the applications?
The intensive collection of data and the inherent advantages of the new technology have spawned the cynical idea that Privacy is dead, and we might as well get used to that fact. There is a need for users to understand the limits of Privacy as control measures. Data collection by tech firms exposes the user to a number of different dangers, not least that the firm collecting the data may misuse or sell it, but also that they will not secure the data adequately and third parties may eventually have unauthorized access to a database of the online habits of millions of users.
On the other hand in the past decade, we have seen a huge development regarding the protection of information, with regulations like GDPR and California Consumer Privacy Act looking to uphold the individuals right to privacy, but It is extremely important for people to understand the rules of the game when it comes to accepting the terms and conditions and sharing their information with the digital tools they use.
One example comes to mind, with the recent brouhaha surrounding WhatsApp new privacy policy where many users were quick to decide to delete or switch to new messaging platforms such as Signal or Telegram, is ample proof that a real or perceived privacy issues will influence a users choice of which tools they will use, but It is important to note here that we all habitually use tools that affect our privacy every day such as (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn) and moving away from all of these tools is likely not a viable solution for the majority of users because we rely on them too much.
In my conclusion, the issue of the protection of personal information is vital today. Even though many tech firms promise to keep our data is secure, we should evaluate and decide how much risk we are willing to take when it comes to exposing our own data. Each individual technology user should decide the balance that they are comfortable with between the convenience of the digital tools and the amount of privacy they will sacrifice.
So how about you ? Do you think the future feasible in the protection of user data? Is there a need to for-go Privacy so that we can benefit from today’s technology?
Sources
Are there benefits to giving up our privacy? Bbc.com. (2021). Retrieved 21 January 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140220-can-giving-up-privacy-help-us.
TechCrunch is now a part of Verizon Media. Techcrunch.com. (2021). Retrieved 21 January 2021, from https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/26/privacy-queen-of-human-rights-in-a-digital-world/.
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