It's no secret that modern technology has made life far more convenient. Whether it's for work or personal life, computers and all their features work wonders. However, this technology may not be on our side. Multi-million dollar companies are infamous for invading the privacy of its users. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and many more love to collect user information to target adds to the customers, maximizing profit at the expense of the consumers privacy. Here's what can happen when privacy invasion is at its worst.
When you use any online utility like email or a google search, that search is not entirely private. It's collected by the company who provides the service. If you make a search for dogs, google knows you are interested in dogs and will write that down. This is no secret, it gets much worse. The truth is you really don't have to do anything to get your data collected. Companies and even the government can learn everything about you just by looking at you. Facial recognition technology has reached a point where it can pull all public information about you from reading your face. Your locations are also tracked, whether you allow location or not. The government and companies know about where you go on a weekly basis. The government can even read your license plate numbers in an instant with traffic and police cameras. None of this happened before these technologies came out.
GPS, cell towers, cameras, and online data. These utilities are only some of the many ways companies and governments track people every day. How in the world can we protect ourselves from this? There are several methods. The biggest option is encryption, a layer that prevents outside parties from reaching into various communications like calls or facetime. The problem however is that backdoors in phones were built in from the beginning to track potential criminals. These backdoors have saved lives, but that also means anyone can be listened into by anybody. So it's a complicated choice. Is it better to monitor criminals, or is it better to protect the publics privacy? If we protect the public, criminals will be less detectable, but if we make them hackable, the public is at risk. What do you think?
In conclusion, the fact that our data can be instantly pulled from anywhere for any reason is terrifying. Perhaps the most terrifying part is that there may not be a way to go back. Even if we all use firefox, vpns, encryption, and limit computer use, we'd still be tracked through other methods. If we go further than that and stop using this technology altogether, we wouldn't be able to function. We are living in an age where it's impossible to function stably without these gadgets. They are necessary for jobs and everyday life. Is it too late, or is there a way to truly save our privacy? Only time will tell.
https://www.ted.com/talks/catherine_crump_the_small_and_surprisingly_dangerous_detail_the_police_track_about_you?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
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