Blog Post #6 - Privacy, Online and Off

My Privacy Concerns

For my Media Law and Literacy class, I watched several TED Talk videos about how our privacy is violated. These videos touched on issues such as police tracking, email tracking, revenge porn, a doll that can be used to listen and communicate with your child, and more. These videos were quite disturbing, and have opened my eyes to the lack of privacy I have in my daily life. Before this section of the class, I seldom worried about my information being tracked and mined. I was naive to think that I was not a person of interest, and I figured my information was not important. Now I realize that not only is my information important to the apps and websites I use, but it can also be used by the government to make a detailed dossier of me.

With this new knowledge, I am beginning to worry about how my lack of privacy will affect me and the people around me. For example, I am questioning how many of my private conversations are overheard by my devices and what companies do with that information. I feel that I am not comfortable talking about politics or controversial issues. I also do not want the police to know everywhere I go by using license plate scanners. This information makes me wonder how long these companies keep the data they collect on me. Will something I say now in my home be used against me in 20 years?

In my opinion, I think the government should be doing more to protect us. This is a delicate situation to make sure our rights are protected; however, there should be more laws protecting us. I believe that the actions of the companies that allow themselves to scan our emails, collect our data, use our images, and more through their terms of service should be illegal. I wish that our law enforcement could go after the people who sell our information; however, on the other hand, some may say that collecting data may help us catch criminals or terrorists. Although this may be true, everyone's data would go to the government and I do not believe it is worth the cost.

Because is this such a controversial topic, until we possibly get more protection, it is important to learn how to protect ourselves and our privacy. The best way to keep things safe from data mining on the internet is to never put sensitive information online. There are also tools like VPNs, encryption, and more secure emails and browsers that can help protect information online.