Does Privacy Still Exist?

The World Wide Web was created roughly 30 years ago. Today the internet is used for just about everything, such as shopping, communicating, business matters, and so much more. The typical person lives their lives online. Most people know that what they post or use the internet for is not really private, but the question is: "How many people really know what that means?".

This week in class we watched Ted Talks about one's privacy, one of them was about 'electronic tattoos'. It essentially compared ones life online to tattoos on our bodies. Yes, tattoos on one's body are permanent, that is why some people refrain from getting them, but our digital footprint is even more permanent. Electronic tattoos will live far longer than our bodies will, that is why it is important to be careful what you share or use the internet for.

However, even if one does not use the internet or they are careful about how they use it, they still can be tracked in other ways. For example, this Ted Talk focused on automatic license plate readers. When someone first hears about automatic license plate readers they might not think much of it but they can be used for more than you think. Location records are kept by police departments of every plate that passes them by resulting in a huge pile of information about where Americans travel to. This information can reveal where you live, if you go to church, and just what you do on a daily basis. One instance, in particular, that was highlighted in the Ted Talk was of this man who went to his police to see what they had on record of him. There were several pictures of him from the license plate tracker, even pictures of him and his daughters getting out of their car in his driveway! The important thing to note is this man has no criminal record.

The last Ted Talk that I found interesting talked about wiretapping. Our telephone companies have provided wiretapping assistance to governments, they have "built surveillance features into the very core of their networks". Our phones are wired for surveillance first. Anyone could be monitoring your phone usage, your own government, a stalker, essentially any party that is able to hack into the surveillance system of your telephone company. Luckily, iPhone has built-in encryption tools that make it hard for someone to hack into your messages which the government is not happy about because the encryption tools are on by default. Government officials believe all communications should be available to governments in order to keep everyone safe. Their argument is that we all use the same communication devices as a terrorist, therefore, we should be using devices that allow wiretapping. This is an interesting point, but I disagree. I do not like the idea of any government being able to wiretap anyone's phone throughout the entire world because this also means any hacker could wiretap those phones.

There seems to be no way to live a private life in this day and age. One can try their best to live a private life but there seems to be no escape to at least some of your personal information being exposed. The scary thought is that all of these monitoring devices that exist can be misused.