Privacy Never Stops Being a Debate

       The government has many policies on data privacy, and frankly the public isn’t aware of most of them. It is also evident that many companies are finding loop holes in privacy laws or just not getting caught. The current policies on data privacy all follow the general guidelines that others cannot wire tap, record conversations on cell phones, or illegally obtain your text messages. It’s all explained in this Privacy Rights website.

        That being said, what about this recent article Facebook Spies, Facebook has accessed smart phone user’s data for their personal use (app making, marketing, trend prediction). But the question is, should it be allowed without penalty? It’s not just Facebook doing this, but any app that a smartphone user downloads could have access to their texts and other personal data.  It is interesting that this hasn’t broken some government regulation and why there aren’t more people complaining.


The Existence of a Loop Hole

       But further research showed that there is most likely no law against this because when users download certain apps and agree to terms of use, the tracking is fair game. An Education News article explains this unfortunate loop hole. Since users grant the application permission, they have complete access. It makes me think that the government could do more to regulate how the data is acquired. In my opinion, it’s not fair to expect app downloaders to read agreements that are X amount of pages long and written in extra small size print. But it’s also due to uninformed users that cause this problem.







Privacy For Businesses

      But stepping away from individual privacy regulations and looking at data privacy from a different perspective, like business, data regulations are still an important issue. More recently in the government, the White House has decided to tackle consumer privacy. In the business world, trust is a very important quality. This bill would allow companies to be involved in the privacy policies and make it more secure. I think that the government is headed in the right here; although it may not regulate all businesses and their procedures at first, once started it might gain more momentum.  

     Although that was an example of corporations encouraged to cooperate with government policies, Verizon shed a different light on it back in October of 2011. Verizon contested the government regulation called net neutrality. This regulation protected free flow of internet and allows mobile users to access sites/data they wanted and don’t let wireless companies control content provided on their network. When companies and the government don’t agree upon certain rules, the loser is the consumer; our data is being controlled or monitored in the meantime. And some may not think this is an issue, but for those of us who like their data privacy will disagree.


What Can Be Said About Privacy So Far

     It seems that there is a lot of back-and-forth between society’s opinions and government internet regulations. It could be possible that the government isn’t able to produce concrete laws as fast as how new technology is rising but it’s also true that not everyone can be happy when there are so many different views out there. Whatever the real issue is, this debate of the validity of government regulations doesn’t show signs of getting resolved any time soon.  

Dewey Replaced

In present day, it is possible to sit in your living room when you are sick and type your symptoms into an online site such as WebMD and get suggestions on what your illness could be. Although these sites have no guaranteed answers, you can at least figure out if you actually need to visit a doctor or maybe it’s just the jackpot for all the hypochondriacs out there. But, before WebMD and even before the internet was popularized, acquiring information was a little different.

Taking a look back in history shows how getting the information you need took a lot of effort, not just a simple Google search. For example, say you were given an assignment that required you to conduct research on the original thirteen colonies and write a paper about it. (Let’s forget about the internet for a second. We’ll say that you’re in the early 1900’s and the internet was merely a rumor.) How would you go about finishing this assignment? Well, with the aid of the Dewey Decimal system you’d most likely be sitting in the library sifting through many history books to get your information. Back in those days, the library was the main source of mass information. 

Of course, nowadays conducting research on an assignment like that would take much less time and it will most likely have more detail because of the mass information available on the internet. In fact, the library has even been called obsolete. Although there are several uses for a library, the internet has taken over. An article in the Oxford Press “Will Internet make libraries obsolete?”,  discusses how the internet has become such a popular hub for mass information that no one goes to the libraries anymore. This seems to be a growing trend when it comes to students and libraries. But another aspect of the article discussed how many students are in favor of having a library even though they don’t use it. So maybe we aren’t able to let go just yet.

We can see that as the internet has begun to rise, so does our need for knowledge. The research assignment discussed earlier is just a fundamental example of how gaining access to information has changed over the years. Presently, our need for information grows because of its ease of access. With laptops, iPads, smart-phones, and tablets, getting the most recent sports scores or headline news is just a few clicks or taps away. In a piece published on CMSwire, “The Need to Know Relevant Information Now”, Heather Fassio talks about how we have this need to look up random facts just because we can. She emphasizes that it’s no longer information we need but topics would like to know about. So most likely, that report on the original thirteen colonies would be put on the back burner while things like current events, celebrity news, and sports updates are looked up.

Our society’s need for information can also be something of a concern. It’s not that we’re learning too much it’s that we’re not learning enough. We glance over a lot of information like Yahoo’s news article headlines and the local current events but we don’t take a closer look. One article, called “Is the Internet Making us Stupid?” discusses the lack of depth in the information we seek. The researchers mentioned in the article talk about how jumping from one link to the next causes our thoughts to be broken up. The article says that this means that we are going through a lot of information but sacrificing the depth. In the past, going to the library meant finding useful information. Now, we tend to skip over evaluation of what we’re reading because we’re too curious to see what’s next. But this does not mean the abundance of information online is a negative thing, it just means the way we process the information is changing. I believe society should keep an eye on this trend even though we’ve come a long way from using just using a catalog to find information. 

I Spy a Choice

The majority of drivers in the US can probably talk about a time when they were lost in an unknown back road because MapQuest decided to include a short cut that didn’t exist. A few years ago, driving to a new place meant either finding it first on a map or printing out directions. Technology has come a far way since then with personal GPS devices. This new technology has cut out a lot of the hassle associated with traveling. But as technology grows, the concern for privacy grows too.

The articles "Personal use of GPS trackers growing fast" on The News Tribune and “Between Google and GPS, privacy takes a step backward” on Fox News both cover many aspects of using personal GPS devices but give more information on the potential risks. I felt that the security issue mentioned is a large part of the GPS debate especially since the seller has no idea of the consumer’s intention for the product (as mentioned in the News Tribune article). Although technology has made life safer, like the GPS that helps parents ensure children's safety, Tracking My Kids, it also comes with many risks. I feel that as technology becomes more popular, especially to the extent of the technology in the Corning video, they are more vulnerable to danger since there are more platforms to share data (private or public).

With a problem so large and growing every day, the way we utilize information that is GPS based should be done carefully. One Smart Planet article quotes an Air Force general saying that the US should start to lessen its dependence on GPS due to the safety risks. But I don’t know if I agree with that solution. I think a more probable solution is for users to be aware of the all the privacy settings and options offered. I also believe that by using any type of technology, whether GPS based or a social media platform, users should be willing to accept that not everything can remain private. 

It seems that when we use our smart-phones or sign up for Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Youtube, and maybe even iTunes accounts, we are voluntarily putting our information out on the web in return for their service. I feel the real debate is whether or not giving up certain aspects of privacy, which are out of our control, is worth the satisfaction we get from using technology. Now that becomes a personal choice.