Digital Privacy and Why it Should Matter to You

DIGITAL PRIVACY AND WHY IT SHOULD MATTER TO YOU

by Christopher D.

Digital Privacy

- Digital privacy, also known as internet privacy, is the concept of passing information, data, messages, and files over the internet without leaking to undesired individuals.

-https://microanalytics.io/articles/digital-privacy/

Digital privacy is a concept that you may not have heard of or really given much thought to, but it affects you in many, mostly hidden ways. The following are some negative consequences of having your digital privacy violated.

1) Data mining your online activities can be used to send you targeted content

Have you ever noticed your recommended content on social media sites such as Youtube always point you at content similar to what you already watch? This is not a coincidence. Websites monitor what you consume, and use that data to predict what you will watch more of. This cultivates addiction, but more importantly, it isolates you from things you don't like. This is very problematic because it creates echo chambers that shield you from other points of view and hearing all sides of an issue, so that you may have a nuanced understanding of it.

It gets even worse. A social media site's only goal is clicks - to keep you using the site as long as possible, so they can make money by showing you ads and selling your browsing habits to other big tech companies. But what gets clicks? Crazy and outrageous content. This is why extremist, fear mongering, political hacks on social media are popular and have so much influence over the minds of internet users. Whether you like these content creators or hate them doesn't really matter. When you click on their content, the algorithm sends you further down the rabbit hole, and makes them more prominent in searches and recommendations.

This also begs a very dark and philosophical question. How much of your ideas and opinions are really yours? Did you REALLY come up with your stance on that issue, or did your favorite site's algorithm send you to enough con artists that you started to believe it? Did you examine both sides of the issue and see it from multiple angles, or were you led on the path that made you waste the most time on Youtube?

You can avoid being tracked and served targeted content by installing plugins that delete browser cookies, block recommended content sidebars, block trackers, and not logging in when you browse a social media site. 

Here are some examples of such plugins
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/ (also available for chrome)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/df-youtube/ (also for chrome)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-badger17/ (also on chrome)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/ (also for chrome. Also blocks ads!)

Your browser itself can also track you. LibreWolf, Brave, Waterfox, or any de-googled chrome based browser, are good choices that respect your privacy. Brave is very user friendly.

No Root Firewall is an easy to install android app that blocks most apps from sending unnecessary, sensitive data to bad actors that try to spy on you. All you need to remember is to allow traffic that is needed for your other apps to work (click those connections to turn them green)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.greyshirts.firewall&hl=en_US&gl=US

2) The authorities can will try to ruin your life

Snowden beat you...

You might be thinking at this point, "Well, if I have nothing to hide, then there is nothing to worry about, so its okay that the police can see all my stuff". Okay, then send me your passwords. DM them to me right now. I dare you. You got nothing to hide ....right? I won't hold my breath waiting for that.

The government, having access to your data is in opposition to the 4th amendment (the protection against search and seizure). Through various loopholes, they get away with it. However, it undermines, and slowly destroys that fundamental right. You wouldn't let the cops live in your house, just to keep an eye on you. Why are you okay with them doing that on your computer and phone?

"But its good because they only do that to catch bad guys!". Think again. Who is a bad guy? Your phone gives away your physical location to phone companies and big tech companies that build location tracking spyware into your phone and apps you use. This can be used to hunt down lawbreakers that many people would argue don't deserve it, such as undocumented immigrants, protesters, such as in the George Floyd protests, or even the street artists we learned about like Banksy. He would be a fool nowadays to take his phone with him on a night of street art creation.

3) Without privacy, your job and daily life can get pretty tough

A popular thing for some workplaces to do now is require employees to install monitoring apps on their phones. This lets the company know the employee's location and movement speed, even when they are away from the facility. This is infamously done to Amazon drivers to keep them working as hard as possible. It got so bad, they started having to use the bathroom in a bottle to not get written up for wasting time on bathroom breaks. I sometimes have to see their discarded bottles on the side of the road, which isn't nice... Imagine if you were late to work and your boss could see from your phone where you have been. "Why were you at the drug store?", he asks impatiently, while you think of an excuse for needing that Tylenol, other than the truth that you are hungover.

And what about even getting a job in the first place? Employers want to get their hands on as much info on you as possible. Wouldn't want to lose the offer because the HR department was able to get its claws on your Google (use Brave search, not Google) searches from last year? Passed the drug test, but legally ordered marijuana a few months ago? Sorry, this is a drug free workplace.

WHY DIGITAL PRIVACY? HOW DOES THIS ISSUE AFFECT ME?

It feels kind of like that

 This issue affects me because it attacks and undermines my right to privacy, and rights are important to me. I know that it is wrong from a moral standpoint and that is why I am against it.

 A more tangible way that it affects me is that datamining-fueled content manipulation distorts the information I and the people I have to live with, see. This means it affects our thoughts and ideas. Because of datamining and its use in content delivery algorithms, I have to live in a world where many of my peers and associates’ thoughts have been programmed by the content they are algorithmically shown. If you have ever felt upset that someone you know was “brainwashed” by social media, or a popular content creator, then it has affected you too.

Another tangible way it affects me is for employment. User data is often a company secret, but they can always sell it, or decide to make it public. Its already hard enough to get a job, and I don’t need “what you Googled last year” to be something on a background check.

WHY THIS ISSUE IN PARTICULAR?

I chose this issue because it is something that affects everyone, and often in ways that they don’t perceive or fully appreciate, which I have outlined above. It is a very insidious and pervasive problem, that I would like to draw attention to

.

I also chose this issue because it concerns people’s rights (or what ought to be rights), specifically the right to privacy. I feel that having governments and big tech companies spying on our every move is dangerous and creepy. It feels like living in a dystopian sci fi story. The kind of thing they told me were only in movies, but now we are living it.

WHAT DO THE PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY?

Digital Privacy is important. We pretend that China spying on us with TikTok is a big deal, but private corporations have been doing it for years and selling our data. Target figured out a young girl was pregnant before she knew and got her in trouble with her parents. Bulk data collection violates the 4th amendment. Spy on them instead.

- John Barnes

I was surprised that John had heard of the Target incident. This was a creepy scandal where Target's rewards program suggested pregnancy items to a teenage girl, because it predicted that she was pregnant based on her purchases. Target's algorithm knew she was pregnant before she did.

I have linked an article on that case below.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

I don't like the idea that companies believe they have the right to 'sell our information', since it implies the company makes money off of my information. If a company does this, I think we should receive a cut since its OUR identity they are making profit on, but I would rather they don't do it PERIOD. Also, the cloud is basically THEIR safe. My stuff is inside THEIR safe, and I don't like that.

- Jonah Cazares

Jonah recognizes that information has value. This is an important reality in information science. He is right that companies make huge amounts of money in collecting and selling information about people. It is a popular argument that the people this information comes from, should be entitled to some of the money it generates. He also points out that storing data in cloud storage, puts it on the provider's server, and they can do whatever they want with it. Apple infamously used AI to examine every image uploaded to iCloud, to check against a database of illegal images. In a major victory for privacy however, there was enough outcry that they were forced to stop.

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-photo-scanning-csam-communication-safety-messages/

WORKS CITED

https://www.wired.com/story/apple-photo-scanning-csam-communication-safety-messages/ 

microanalytics.io/articles/digital-privacy/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/26/privacy-queen-of-human-rights-in-a-digital-world/

https://teachprivacy.com/10-reasons-privacy-matters/

What Is Online Privacy and Why Does It Matter? | Clario