Correct Personal Information Analysis

This chapter describes the various ways in which our personal privacy is compromised by the digital explosion.

Although technology has provided tools to enhance our capabilities in things such as finding a missing person, solving murder cases based on technological assets etc.., this technology also leaves us vulnerable in many ways to slowly losing our privacy (Burten, C., 2012).

He then uses ethos by discussing his role as “an operator of a small government-transparency Web site,” who does good for his site’s visitors when there is enough money to do so. Harper is a founding member of the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee for the Department of Homeland Security and an expert in the legal complications surrounding new technologies. He offers us this role to persuade readers to perceive him as a trustworthy person. Harper begins his essay by stating that if you surf the Web, you are part of the information economy. His essay, which was published in the Wall Street Journal, argues that the business models and opportunities used to customize advertising justifies the use of data mining. Because of advertising and the use of cookies, which are files used to track users in order to customize their experiences, companies such as Google are able to spend millions of dollars on free

This editorial is intended to open the eyes of older and middle-aged Americans who are involved in the technology community that we live, but don't understand the hidden repercussions that permeate through their phone, computer, and laptop use. Not many people understand how the government's abilities affect their daily lives, and some are even completely ignorant to their privacy actions. I intend to inform them about the dangers of releasing personal information into the open, as it is not only harmful for yourself, but to others around them.The audience will then learn that the government is always listening to our every text, call, email, search, and keystroke and adding every day people into a bank of information.

In the essay, “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty” by Nicholas Carr, he argues the importance of privacy when one is surfing the web. Carr writes how companies personalize ads they provide on the internet based on our personal information. We are not aware of the consequences and the information we disclose about ourselves on the internet. Everything we do on the internet is recorded and stored. Nicholas Carr uses ethos and counter argument/refutation to express to his audience that their privacy is being violated.

The amount of data produced in the world is increasing exponentially, and we are a part of this phenomenon. We all use email, phones, social media, and credit cards. The new technologies that we are bringing home, such as smart cars and smart TVs, are collecting more and more data. Boyd and Crawford exposed the imperfections of the Big Data industry, and they have shown that we cannot assume that the industry will solve its own problems. By using all these technologies, we have given Big Data access to our finances, social interactions, homes, and minds. Big Data offers imperfect people tools that can be used for good and evil. If we are blind to how our data is being collected, the industry will continue misusing our data. But if we pay attention, and demand the technology companies respect our privacy, they will be forced to have higher standards. Currently, our society has ignored how our privacy is being jeopardized. As Boyd and Crawford noted, we don’t have the tools and access of researches, and our often unaware of the algorithms collecting our information (759,760). But we do have power. We can voice our concerns, or find alternatives to services that don’t respect us. We can use the tools we have access to for good, just like Big Data has been used

The web has ‘taken over’ 81% of Americans lives! Most of us don't ever think about where the data we research is stored and what can be done with it. We would like to believe that searching the web as freely as we do will be a lifelong privilege. That carriers and companies cannot be biased and raise the fees for faster responses or even manipulate your searches. But there are no such promises.

Each time we use the internet from these devices, our information is recorded. “Acxiom alone has accumulated an average of 1,500 pieces of data on each person on its database – which includes 96 percent of Americans – along with data about everything from their credit scores to where they’ve bought medication from incontinence” (Pariser, 3). Everything that someone does on the internet is stored in a database. This is the information that is used to filter what you see online. Online information is recorded on each person starting before birth, which is called a digital dossier. According to Palfrey and Grasser, a digital dossier is a superset that includes all personal information associated with a persons’ name (39). “In the course of a day in the life of a college student, many of the basic social interactions between young people are recorded” (Palfrey Grasser, 49). The social media pages you visit, the videos and posts you upload are recorded in your digital dossier which lies in the hands of many people like Acxiom and Google, who then form an idea of who you are. “His digital dossier will be held in thousands of hands…much less to control what others can come to know about him.” (Palfrey and Grasser 50). Some of these hands include companies like Google, Netflix, Amazon, and Acxiom who use this information to filter

“Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty” is an essay written by Nicholas Carr in 2010 in the Wall Street Journal. He said that there are chances that, “our personal data will fall into the wrong hands” (Carr 438). It means that people’s personal information might drop under the hands of hackers, data aggressors, and stalkers. In addition, Carr believes that “personal information may be used to influence our behavior and even our thoughts in ways that are invisible to us” (Carr 439). It means that the data aggressors misuse people’s information in opposite way or in a wrong way. For example, data aggressors steal the people’s personal information and use that information for their own benefits. Therefore, Carr believes that government should regulate the internet. Unlike Carr, Harper believes that people are responsible for their own information. They should be aware and concerned about potential dangers of posting their personal information on the internet. However, it’s people duty to be aware of its consequences before posting any of their personal

The last way we give up our confidentiality for security is by using the internet. Every search we make and website we click on is recorded. Our activity on the internet is analyzed for suspicious and dangerous actions. The scanning of internet activity by Google and government agencies has the potential to catch members of terrorist groups, pedophiles, and many other dangerous criminals. By using the monitored internet, we surrender our confidentiality for the safety of our community and

Because technology improves and advances dramatically, tracking people’s information by corporation has become more sophisticated too. A week ago I was looking for an airline ticket to New Zealand; as a result of that any sites I open, even ebay—I have insert with deferent offers for New Zealand travel. This same technique corporations use while we shop. Once you are looking for something, be ready to be attacked with cookies that have similar offers for weeks to come. It is harmless, but very annoying. The good news is, most information corporations collect about us are used just for businesses to take advantage and make profits from us. Plotz writes: “One wonderful, terrible thing about modern capitalism is that companies don’t care. You are not a person. You are a wallet”(70).

We are being digitally tracked and monitored today more than ever before. In Minneapolis, a father walked into Target and demanded to see the manager. He had discovered that her daughter had been receiving coupons for baby clothes and cribs, and accused the manager at Target of encouraging his daughter to get pregnant. A few days later the manager called to apologize, but it was the father who apologized, as he had found out that his daughter was actually pregnant. Target, with the use of prediction models, formulas and collected data from the girl’s past purchases, knew that the girl was pregnant before her own father did. Technology today is so advanced that everything we do is collected by computers and processed.

Privacy concerns on the web have become an undesirable consequence that people face with cyber technology. The ability of computers to gather and store unlimited amount of information from the internet raises privacy issues concerning an individual’s informational privacy. A person’s right to informational privacy is the ability to control the flow of their personal information, including the transfer and exchange of that information. An invasion of informational privacy denies people the right to control who accesses their personal information. Many internet users are unaware that they are more likely to compromise their privacy when using the internet services such as search engines and social networking sites. The internet provides access to an incredible amount of information from all over the world. Some internet users use the internet exclusively as a source of information while other internet users use the internet to create and disseminate information for others to use. However, the vast amount of information floating on the internet would not

Individual citizens' rights to digital privacy continue to be to challenged by the increasing need for national security one the one hand, and the increasing digital vigilance many companies are putting into place to protect themselves while learning more about their customers. These factors are a volatile catalyst that continues to change the ethical, legal and personal landscape rights of digital privacy in the information technology age. The depth and pace of change that is occurring in the areas of capturing, aggregating, analyzing and using personal data is unprecedented and will continued to escalate as new risks emerge (Ottensmeyer, Heroux, 1991). In conjunction with these volatile catalysts of change, there has never been an era where every aspect of activity in a company or enterprise is monitored (Riedy, Wen, 2010). From the use of company telephones and networks to the monitoring of Wi-Fi signals accessible from outside the four walls of a business, surveillance and the implications for digital privacy continue to exponentially increase. Beginning with an analysis of three dominant technologies that give individuals the ability to research others' backgrounds and personal data, this paper looks at the advantages and disadvantages to this type of information distribution.

Voluntarily surrendering our privacy rights every time we click the “Agree” button on those dense, and often unread Terms and Conditions, director Cullen Hoback outlines the real-life dangers of digital recklessness in the documentary Terms and Conditions May Apply. As the film illustrates, a random tweet or seemingly innocent Google search could summon away your privacy forever. The concise and lively summary of the many ways corporations, law enforcement and government agencies gather, share and use our information is creepily unnerving. It reveals that our digital privacy is at risk every time