John
Alexander (2015)
Privacy
concerns seem to come up daily in the news these days, whether it be government
spying through the NSA or people willingly giving information about themselves
away on social media. It seems as if no one has any privacy anymore. As actor
Will Smith said in a recent interview on the show ‘Vecherniy Urgant’, “I was
very dumb when I was 14. See, no Twitter, no Facebook when I was 14. So I was
dumb, but I was dumb in private.” His view is a common one – that people,
especially young people, are being exposed to privacy risks through their use
of technology. Willingly given or not the formerly private information of the
populace is being stored, tracked, and sold to buyers for both legal and
illegal use. Though there are many stories in the news about privacy concerns
the general public doesn’t seem to be worried, or are perhaps too ill-informed
to be worried. Is this problem truly nothing to be concerned about, or is the
lack of concern letting this problem spiral out of control?
Defining
Privacy
The
best place to start is with a definition of privacy in the context of
technology. The best way to describe privacy in this context is in terms of
“restricted access/limited control” (Tavani and Moor 2001). Restricted access
means that there is a form of privacy where some people are allowed access and
others are not, so a person can stop others from viewing their information if
they so choose. It is reasonable to expect the same amount of privacy in these
situations that one would have if not using technology. To ensure control over
their personal data, individuals need to have what is called limited control
over their personal data so that they can ensure restricted access. This can be
as simple as being able to toggle privacy settings on a Facebook page. The
reason this definition is important is because there has always been a tradeoff
between a loss of privacy and a perceived benefit or convenience. If a person
doesn’t have ownership of their privacy,
they don’t have anything to trade within this scenario.
However,
when using a website, the ‘control’ a user may feel they have may just be an
illusion. Even with all of the privacy settings turned on, there is no
guarantee that Facebook isn’t going to use your data. From both the side of the
consumer and the companies that want the consumer information, there is a
cost-benefit analysis to be done. Every time a person decides to join a new
social network, they have decided that they are willing to hand over certain
personal information about themselves so they can easily stay connected with
their friends and family. They pay the cost of handing over some personal
information for what they see as the benefit of being in touch with their
friends and family (Ng-Kruelle 2002). A cost benefit like this is totally up to
the individual – a person that is very concerned with their personal privacy may
not think this tradeoff is worth it and because of this may abstain from
creating a Facebook profile.
Who
is Taking Our Information?
There
are a number of different groups looking to gather information on people,
because information can lead to knowledge and knowledge is power. Luckily for
the people looking for information, the Internet makes it easy to gather a
large amount of information quickly. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange described
the Internet as the “greatest spying machine the world has ever seen” (Kingsley
2011). It is easy to see why he thinks that this is the case. Some of the
organizations looking to collect user data are Facebook, Google, and the
National Security Administration of the United States.
The
National Security Administration (NSA) is an organization that has roots in
code breaking in World War I and World War II, but has grown into one of the
largest government organizations in terms of staff and funding. There are
estimates that say that the NSA has nearly 40,000 employees and an estimated
budget of $11 billion, though it is probably more than that (Verble 2014).
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the NSA was discreetly authorized to spy
on American citizens without a warrant to do so, which has stirred up quite a
bit of controversy. Though the NSA seems to continuously get surveillance
powers stripped and then later secretly given back, it seems that the NSA
continues to spy on people both domestically and abroad without any public
uproar. However, the NSA has been caught spying on foreign leaders – including
those that are supposed to be our allies.
Two
other major players – Google and Facebook – have similar tactics and similar
goals. Both companies provide a number of services to users free of charge,
because their primary source of revenue is selling user information to
advertisers. These companies have the capability to track user traffic and are
essentially giant databases filled with user information that can be mined and
sold for a profit. While Google and Facebook aren’t the only websites that do
this, they are two of the major players that come up when user privacy is
discussed. Just to check how much Google knows about you, you can check your
‘Google Ads’ settings where they use the data they have collected on you to
guess your age, gender, and interests. This is the information that Google uses
to tailor ads to everyone that uses their services.
Should
we be Worried?
The
increase in information gathering, with or without the knowledge and consent of
the people whose information is being gathered, is definitely cause for alarm.
However, different demographics of people have varying levels of concern when
it comes to information privacy. Younger people, for example, are less likely
to be concerned about Internet privacy than their older counterparts, even
though they are more likely to know that their information is being collected
and tracked. Females are more likely to be concerned with Internet privacy than
males, and people with more education are less likely to be concerned (Zukowski
2007).
Interestingly,
the more familiar with the Internet the person seems to be, the more
comfortable they seem to be with their personal data being collected. The issue
with user data collection is the risk of misuse, and what different
people/companies view as proper use of personal information. For example,
insurance companies have been mining for client data to look for possible
health risks, and have been accused of changing client rates based on the data
they have mined. This is different than a client disclosing their own health
risks as the information gathered by the insurance company may be inaccurate,
and may lead to clients being overcharged for their insurance. Another
situation of a company overreaching is when Target revealed a pregnancy of a
teenaged girl to her father when they sent a “congratulations” to her home
after noticing that she recently bought larger handbags, tissues, and headache
pills. While marketers clearly thought that it was an acceptable marketing ploy,
many people saw it as a clear invasion of privacy and an abuse of data mining
(Virani 2015).
Something
to consider when you think of your privacy when using the Internet is how these
companies like Facebook make money – essentially by selling “you”. In fact,
Facebook has been caught showing false endorsements from a user’s friends for
products they have been paid to advertise, and don’t tell you when they do so
(Virani 2015). What happens in these situations is that an ad will appear on
user A’s Facebook, claiming that user B recommends a product to them, when in
reality user B has probably never used the product being endorsed by “them” and
has no idea that their name is being used to advertise a product.
Facebook
builds an unnervingly accurate model of who you are as a person by reading your
statuses, private messages, and likes. Facebook can also track you on any page
that has a plug-in ‘like this on Facebook’ button, following you around the web
outside of Facebook to gather more data on you. All of this data is being
collected on users, and Facebook is just one of the many companies collecting
data. This is scary, because these companies make money by selling user data,
and the laws can’t keep up with the technology when it comes to the Internet.
Users have no idea what the companies collecting data are going to do with it.
It is hard to stop them from doing anything because there are few laws, if any,
to prevent the collection and sale of user data. The fact that companies are
making money from your personal information, and that there are very few
limitations to what they can do with that information, should be very
concerning.
In many cases the only thing holding these
companies back is the bad PR they would
get if they got found doing something that many would consider to be unethical.
Many companies are already doing unethical things (or have the potential to do
unethical things) hidden away in long terms of use agreements that no regular
user reads. Unless something changes or something is done to stop it, the whole
situation could easily spiral out of control and become a much bigger issue
than it already is. However, there would have to be a massive push for the
protection of privacy from average citizens for any changes to occur. The
companies won’t back off unless people protest, and the government won’t make
any laws regarding privacy unless the citizens demand it
Source: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1430&context=honorsprojects
Alexander, John,
"How Technology is Killing Privacy" (2015). Honors Projects. 397.
http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/honorsprojects/397
