Privacy
Privacy is a very hot topic nowadays. Maybe you think about your secrets from time to time and wonder if anybody knows them? Or maybe you google yourself sometimes to see what information you can find online about your life? If you did, then you already thought about privacy! But what does privacy actually mean?
What does privacy mean?
Let’s look at the official definition: ”Privacy is the right that someone has to keep their personal life or personal information secret or only revealed to a small group of people”.
This means that you, your friends and your family have the right to keep personal information about yourselves (for example, your home address, your phone numbers, your contact list, etc.) private, only for yourselves or for other people you trust.
What about your online privacy?
Well, you might say, you can just choose to keep certain things secret, right?
Ideally, it should be like this. Unfortunately, the reality is different, which is exactly why privacy is a matter of concern. In the past, before the digital era, people could just hide papers containing important information away in a trunk. Only when somebody found that hiding spot, their information would be seen.
Nowadays, because of the extent of the Internet, suddenly, all of those personal storage boxes are passed to the hands of social media giants. Think of Google, Facebook and other online organizations.
Take a second to think about it. Right now, you are surfing the web by using a browser (Chrome, Firefox etc.) and a search-engine (Google, Bing etc.) You are probably logged into your Google account too. Why is this all relevant?
Your Digital Footprint
People all leave something called a digital footprint.
All of your activity online (search history, social media posts, passwords, the ads you click on and other personal information) is stored online.
You’ve probably heard this saying before: “Everything you ever do on the Internet will forever remain there”.
How does that work, you might wonder? Let me explain below!
How is our private information being used online?
First, let’s start with a simple question. Do you like cookies?
A cookie is a little package of your personal data and preferences that you give away about yourself while using a website. For example, if you’re going to Amazon’s website and typing in “black fidget spinner”, the browser will pack up a cookie file containing your search history (“black fidget spinner”). Because browsers don’t have memory of their own, they send this cookie file to your device and from there several things can happen with it:
It can be stored there until the next time you use the website (so that the website remembers your search history and that you’re interested in black fidget spinners)
It can be sent to third parties like advertising companies (for example, if you only had a look at fidget spinners, but didn’t buy one, you might get an ad for a black fidget spinner later in the day)
Now, you might already understand why this can be an issue. Cookies can make you think of a delicious dessert, but in the Internet world they can be a tool used both for bad and for good purposes.
Should we be worried?
Did I make you worried? Keep in mind that it’s up to us to influence how the futures will look like! There are examples of people around the world taking actions in order to make our future a better place.
Tim Burners Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web decided that it’s time for individuals to take back control of their own data from giants like Google and Facebook and invented the “Pods”.
Think of this as your own digital safe or trunk. Like you would normally hide away your valuable belongings or your important papers, you can store your own personal data (your music/clothing preferences, your passwords, addresses, accounts etc.) in a pod. This way, companies can gain access to your data only with your permission (like you opening the trunk with your key and letting them have something inside).
On the other hand, entities like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon etc. are fighting hard against people taking actions like this. If they can’t freely store and sell your data to advertisers, then how will they continue making profit?
We should also think about other aspects, too. Did you know that cybercrime is the 4th strongest trend today? If you don’t want all of your personal information in the hands of an ill-intended hacker, you better make sure your devices are protected!
Privacy is a human right, but is the internet robbing this right from the people? How do you feel about all these companies collecting pages and pages of information about you online? It is kind of scary to me, but the future is in our hands and even organizations like the European Union are trying to make some laws to protect our information! (learn more about that here). So we can and will try to ensure that our privacy is guaranteed in the future.
