In a world where everyone is connected, can we ever be truly anonymous? Cloud storage, geotags, tracking and other types of sharing are all prevalent in our daily lives. We think we have control of these apps and programs, but are we every truly aware?
The issue of privacy on the internet has been a long debated topic. Some people say we can share what we want and leave out what we don’t. It quickly becomes apparent that this is not the case. As we see time and time again, private celebrity pictures become public all to often and ‘leaks’ of information have happened countless times. The truth is, when your information is out there it’s out there. Though it may seem private, someone with the proper knowledge can track your location or see your photos. The problem is, not sharing these things may make them seem private but if they are present they can be accessed by someone.
So how have these privacy ‘leaks’ been dealt with by the government? The FCC came out with net neutrality laws that treated ISP’s (internet service providers) with a new set of rules to give everyone equal access to the internet, “this also protected consumer privacy and security” (Mccabe, 2016). Is this enough, probably not. The only way to truly stop information of data from ‘leaking’ is to abstain from being on the internet at all. Like I said above, if the information is there it can be accessed by someone. A true intervention for this problem would help. By understanding that data should be encrypted and people should have a right to keep their own information private, this would lead to better encryption practices. Even this though is no match for someone with the right tools, such as the government, who can easily bypass these security methods and eventually find your information.
The world is connected, almost a little too much. The reality of putting your information online is that some of it may get into the wrong hands. It’s important to prepare and be cautious of what you put out there, because it may end up somewhere you least expect. McCabe, D. (2016, March 19). Internet privacy rules: What you need to know. Retrieved March 20, 2016, from http://thehill.com/policy/technology/273624-internet-privacy-rules-what-you-need-to-know
I think this topic is something a lot of people don’t understand. The internet can be looked at as a sort of blessing and a curse. It is very useful, but if used in the wrong way, it can be harmful. Privacy is a big issue when it comes to posting things online, but I think that the best thing we can do right now to control this issue is to simply make people aware. Make people aware of privacy violations, the things that can happen and some of the steps they can take in order to prevent some of these things from happening.