At the RSA Security Europe Conference in London recently, individual privacy levels were at the front of people’s discussions. It was debated that communication and society has changed irrevocably and this will have a negative effect on people’s privacy. Before the rise of computers, conversation was typically done on the phone or in person. Yet nowadays, lots of correspondence is carried out through email or online. This creates a copy of all correspondence.
Deleting an email will not necessarily get rid of it. The receiver or sender still has a version on their account. Increasingly, large data centres make it easy to store online communication. It was argued that cheaper technology and continually increasing memory sizes mean that recording and collecting data is now more conceivable than it was some years ago.
You might be wondering why it matters, but personal data equals higher profits. Having access to plenty of personal data will mean companies can make more profit. Everyday, this is routinely seen when signing up for anything new, with those ‘please tick here if you do not wish to have any communication from the company’; this happens offline as well. However, how many customers read all of the terms of agreement and privacy policies for the software we download or the websites that we use? It may well be shocking to go through a few of them and realize just what the site can do with your collected data.
Facebook continues to be criticized for the convoluted privacy settings and not being transparent with users. It is entirely possible for you to go through all the details on somebody’s profile page if they have not enabled particular privacy settings. Whilst the security conscience amongst people will certainly be sure to set our privacy options appropriately, countless users do not know they’re even exposing themselves to potential cyber crime and identity theft. It is not just enough to argue that it is their own mistake if their level of privacy gets compromised. Moreover, organizations should not wish to deceive people for the purpose of less complicated data collection.
Google was also under lots of political and social complaints regarding its collection of personal wi-fi data whilst collecting data as a part of its StreetView service. Google effectively listened in to people’s wi-fi connections and saved private data. Google’s nonchalant reaction upset plenty of users and several governments were drawn into the debate challenging the legality of what Google did.
The more data an organization has on you, the more they can charge companies to target you. If an organization knows you are female, aged between 30-40 and have two children, well then advertisers will be willing to pay more because they can target ads more effectively. If an advertisement is targeted at the right user then the advertisers will see more results. Marketers are willing to pay more as then they could target you with toy advertisements, home improvement advertisements, kitchen advertisements and so on, as opposed to advertisements for extreme sports or weight lifting (although these are big generalizations).
Hence, it is key to always ensure that you read terms of agreement accurately and know your rights. Everytime you register for anything you are basically signing a contract. It is actually terrible to think one ill-judged registration for a service could result in a negative outcome some years later. Always read the terms, it might sound trite but it may just save you. Additionally, you should always maintain secure net safety practices.You may also utilize a VPN service such as UK VPN to protect your privacy.
