Digital Privacy x Digital Culture
To start from the beginning and get on the same page, Digital Privacy is the right that any user of the web has to decide which personal data and information they want to share about themselves and what they want to keep safe to protect their privacy. Personally, I have always believed that digital privacy is so crucial to everyone’s safety and well-being. I mean how can it not be? I would love to hear an opposing argument on this topic of conversation. The protection of personal information on websites and news has been a topic of general concern for many years now, as technology is continuing to drastically evolve and advance. Digital Privacy implies certain characteristics about an individual and shares any data involving someone’s full name, home address, bank data, email address, photos or videos, or personal purchases and data. While many companies and internet providers ensure that the handling of personal data is confidential and there is no way for anyone to access it, there are various ways that this data can be archived and used for commercial purposes.
According to the Policy Brief: Privacy article shared above, “Personal data has become a profitable commodity. Every day, users are sharing more personal data online, often unknowingly, and the Internet of Things will increase this dramatically. These factors have the potential to expose personal data and create privacy challenges on a greater scale than ever before” (Internet Society, 2015). In today’s age, with how advanced our digital technology world is, information can get gathered and spread very quickly and effectively for very little expense. Often when I think of social media and the web, I think of how dangerous it can be physically, mentally, and emotionally. Personal privacy gets intruded on more often than not. Companies need to be more aware of how they are storing people’s private information and people need to think about what they are putting out about themselves online. How safe really is the internet? Do I feel protected at all?
I like to think of algorithms as the lifesavers to all of my unanswered questions. Algorithms, simply, are the instructions for solving a problem or completing a task. Little do people know, “The internet runs on algorithms and all online searching is accomplished through them. Email knows where to go thanks to algorithms. Smartphone apps are nothing but algorithms. Computer and video games are algorithmic storytelling. Online dating and book-recommendation and travel websites would not function without algorithms. GPS mapping systems get people from point A to point B via algorithms” (Rainie and Anderson, 2017). Every single thing people see and do on the internet is a product of algorithms. The overall effect of algorithms will be significantly beneficial for individuals and society, as it is a useful tool that accomplishes anything and everything for people and will only continue to advance with technology. They positively impact human lives in incredible ways.
Something that took me by surprise was in the Do you Read Terms of Service Contracts? No Many Do, Research Shows the conversation that I linked below. Shankar Vedantam, the creator of Hidden Brain Radio Show, has a rich conversation with David Greene as they look into the terms and conditions people are prompted to read. While millions of people are familiar with this and have experienced it more often than not, has anyone ever taken the time to actually sit down, read, and comprehend everything that is shown and successfully click the “I agree” button? I know I can say that I haven’t! Nobody wants to sit and read through pages of confusing information they are not familiar with, which is the overlying problem. According to Jonathan Obar, “It would take the average user 40 minutes a day to read all the privacy and terms of service policies that we encounter related to the different services that we are using all time” (Hidden Brain Radio Show, 2016). How can a company or organization expect this of people? This situation is usually never a problem, from my experiences, but it can get dangerous when people do not know what they are actually agreeing to. As active internet, social media, and digital technology users we need to recognize the hazardous and unpredictable situation we are getting ourselves into when clicking this “I agree” box.
A case study I found interesting, educational, and related to our topics of learning was published by AIS eLibrary and is titled Understanding Emergence and Outcomes of Information Privacy Concerns: A Case of Facebook. This study, written by Burcu Bulgurcu, Hasan Cavusoglu, and Izak Benbasat dives into a process model developed to explain outcome processes of users’ information privacy concerns in an online social networking context. The authors draw on two main phases which include informational practices of collection and storage, dissemination of personal data, and the outcomes of perceived privacy issues by proposing uses behavioral responses.
Personal data has quickly become a profitable commodity as users’ data is entered and can be dangerously exposed without knowledge and permission.