Written by: Benit Shrestha - 21105, Grade XII
Posted on: 24 December, 2020
If you are a typical-functional individual acquainted with technology, you probably share photos, posts, and other media on the internet to share your happiness and opinions with friends and family. However, have you ever spared a second to ponder where all your data and the data of millions of active users on the web goes? The Internet being a vast virtual domain where anyone can communicate with anyone under the right circumstances, the possibility of an accumulation of your personal data being auctioned off to the highest bidder is not unlikely in the slightest.
‘With over 640,000 new users joining the web on any given day’ (Our World in Data), the collection of user data and other information is increasing at an unstoppable rate. And, proportional to this user data theft and massive plot-holes in data protection have become more and more common in the present context. But, the idea of user privacy was open for debate, way back in the 2010s but even after a decade, nothing has improved. On the contrary, ‘online threats and data breaches have escalated 10-fold’ (Sahid). It is true that on a technological level, we have ascended far beyond what 2010 could offer, but the status of user privacy is evolving as well but backward. Not only people but massive corporations have been laid to waste due to data breaches and forced infiltration. However, it’s not just shady individuals like black-hat hackers that are responsible for the theft of our data, but well-known companies, and even the government is suspected of tracking user web activity to better insight on public ideas and opinions, even if that means violating user privacy.
However, rather than whining about our data being stolen and used for questionable things, we must find the root cause of this, right? But the truth is much bitter than we can accept. The whole issue of violation in privacy starts by a click, like literally. All the things we agree to, while setting up our devices or accessing something on the web, or just giving some sort of permission to apps or websites marks the beginning of our privacy being compromised. ‘About eight-in-ten Americans say they have to agree to privacy policies at least once a month’ (Auxier), this simply goes to show that to access the “free” and vast resources the internet has to offer, we have to agree to give up our privacy and secrecy in a way. This sure sounds like a deal with the devil, unparalleled access to anything and everything the web has to offer for the fair price of one’s privacy. But the violation of user data doesn’t stop here, under the cloaked excuse of ‘personalized user experience’ massive technology giants like Google themselves not only breach our privacy but also auction them off to “data brokers'', who further sell that to other companies. But why go to such lengths to busy some information on someone from a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people. The reason behind this is companies, especially ones operating online consider the whole of the internet an open ground for business, hence it is ‘quite handy for companies to increase revenue by displaying personalized Ads and products based on likes and dislikes of users’ (Ivana). And These are only the basics of the extent of how our personal data is constantly being misused.
In addition to this, cyber threats like hacking, phishing, online fraud, and so on fall under the base idea of privacy violation. Our virtualized data present on the internet is protected by nothing more than a series of code and not a physical material like security safe, so individuals like hackers can easily dig up information on our finances, family, and what not just by breaking the thin barrier of code. Under the guise of being more secure than ever, we are actually putting our information whether it be personal or professional at risk of getting stolen more easily and unknowingly. The data taken forcibly can be used to ‘make virtual and possibly erroneous versions of [users]’ (Melendez and Pasternack). Making you suspects and convicts for heinous crimes you never committed and things you never did. Ultimately just being present on the internet is a huge issue in itself.
If just attempting to utilize the internet comes at such a hefty cost, we should just disconnect our lives from the web and live a life with less virtual components like in the olden days. But the real question here is, how much of resorting to the old lifestyle before technology took over, is possible let alone practical? However, the problems the internet creates are ironically solved by the internet itself. As mentioned before, we are responsible for the breach of our own privacy so if we act on the root cause of the issue itself, we might be able to tackle it in one way or another. Limiting the things we agree to while surfing the web as well as, erasing tracks of our web activity may come as useful for combating data theft. However, the best solution is to minimize the use of the internet, the more we use it the more our web activity starts becoming a personalized user diary. Hence, ‘keeping a low profile on the web might save us the hassle of our privacy being compromised and breached’.
To conclude everything in one go, the internet isn’t the best or the most secure place to be sharing your information blindly. Every individual is responsible for their own safety while surfing the internet and one misclick may just cause us a great deal of trouble. Ultimately, there’s a high chance that the privacy we adore so much is likely being smuggled to brokers right under our nose, and carrying out necessary measures as well as abandoning the use of the internet is the best possible way of avoiding the Sale of our own Privacy.
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