Invasion Of Citizens ' Privacy On Digital Data

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).

Over the course of the past few decades, technology has been on a fast track to more advanced opportunities for communication. These developments have increased efficiency in society, however, it is evident that the basic values, such as privacy of personal information, are compromised significantly. Privacy is an essential element of a free society and without which, individuals would lose the ability to interact with one another in private. With the advancements of technology there is a clash between an individuals right to guard their personal information and the power of the cyber world to penetrate that information. Innovative technologies such as various forms of social media and surveillance are invading the freedom to said privacy.

With the world becoming more advanced and more and more devices being conceived, ie. Smartphones, Smart car, and Smart house, along with a growing dependence on, them even on the level of the government, we need to protect our privacy and safety. It has been statistically shown that our safeguards against hackers and foreign threats is severely lacking. Still, this a worldwide problem, and with the technological revolution, people don’t know how to keep their information safe, so it is our job as part of the government to protect our citizens even from digital

As new technology becomes more prevalent in our everyday lives, we have become increasingly comfortable with the lack of privacy associated with this technology.

With the internet being part of our everyday lives, threats can exist in all fronts. Almost everyone and every business is connected to the Internet. Whether it be offers sent via email or just paying a bill online. Localities have also taken to the web, with city agencies allowing its citizens to have access to a multitude of services online. From registering your car to renewing a drivers license, to filing your taxes online, the government has placed our personal information into databases that can be accessed by both the agencies we entrust and the individuals that have entrusted them. Automation and computer systems have touched every industry the consumer relies on, including our utilities. Besides convenient access to information,

In today’s digital world, most Americans leave long electronic trails of private information wherever they go. But too often, that data is compromised. When they shop—whether online or at brick and mortar stores—retailers gain access to their credit card numbers. Medical institutions maintain patient records, which are increasingly electronic. Corporations store copious customer lists and employee Social Security numbers. These types of data frequently get loose. Hackers gain entry to improperly protected networks, thieves steal employee laptops or disgruntled workers pilfer company information.

Thanks to the popularization of the internet, we can now keep ourselves connected to the cloud every minute. While the internet has brought us immense convenience and enjoyment, we have been compromising our privacy using it. Every day, we exchange megabytes or even gigabytes of data via the internet, and inevitably share our personal information with someone out there. Throughout the past decades, we have begun to realize that the internet is not secure—our information could be easily acquired by someone we don’t even know. Admittedly, today, our activities online can be easily surveilled. The discussion over privacy and surveillance has been heated in the recent several years, and many have blamed surveillance for “damaging democracy” and “invading human rights.” However, we should realize that we are looking at the issue too subjectively. We are far too over paranoid about our privacy. We need to give online data collection credit for keeping our society

Private information in the digital world seems to be more easily obtained as technology furthers. The idea that digital information is as safe as ever might be a very unrealistic concept. The web is filled with hackers and virus’s designed to steal a person’s personal information. The idea that streets could have facial recognition could follow someone throughout someone’s whole day. A person could learn all about them from watching them, where the victim’s kids go to school, where they work, and where the individual sleeps. That information could come with a price to many corrupt people. On another idea, hackers could hack into these systems and again, sell information or use it for one’s own personal

Camp, a director of Security Informatics program, assistant professor of Telecommunication and computer science in Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing, argues how the United States has put into a lot of effort to assure the right to privacy, yet there is no certainty that it is protecting people browsing the internet. The article continues, stating that internet browsing has no legal protection in the United States, making it easy for people to spy on each other’s lives and steal personal information. The article questions the value of privacy and confidentially when it comes to the internet. For example, when people research something or create an account in the internet that includes providing personal information to the site such as your birthdate, occupation, and interests that personal information is distributed and accessed to companies or third parties to use at their advantage. In some case the information is often used to personalize advertisements when you are on the internet or in other situations the information is used to steal one’s identity. In this article we are able to see how technology is powerful by itself without the control of government regulations. The article encourages the readers to question existing laws that protect our privacy and security as there is no boundaries in the internet to prevent people from hacking into your personal

The digital age has become our way of life,but for all this information there are consequences like our privacy. We are constantly being tracked and recorded on the internet. (Risen, P. 1) Tracking, however, is not the only thing we have to worry about. There are also hackers that get a hold of that private data a leak it to the world. For example,” in the year 2015, 505 data breaches have targeted businesses, government agencies, and other institutions, exposing more than 139 million records”. (Risen, P.) All of those people had their information spread just by using the internet for things we think and good and time savers like online shopping. Another example is “The 30 million users of AshleyMadison.com thought they had some privacy – until hackers last week exposed their names, addresses and credit card payments…”(Risen, P.) Both show how much of an invasion of our privacy the collection of our private data can be. Our privacy to what we do is not safe if not just recorded, but it also can be leaked to the whole

This is an era of massive violations of privacy rights and individual liberties due to the new technologies of surveillance, data mining, electronic monitoring, biometric chips, spamming, hacking, phishing, and security breaches at major private and public institutions. These new technologies make the protection of privacy rights far more difficult than in the pre-electronic past. Given the nature of the Internet, thousands or even millions of people can view these Twitter and Facebook postings in a very short time, and they can quickly go 'viral' and spread globally almost overnight (Owyang and Milliken 2010). Governments collect data on the entire life cycles of individuals, from birth to death, as well as information on marriages, divorces, legal records, financial histories, voting, motor vehicles and property ownership. Those suspected of terrorist or 'subversive' sympathies are subjected to far more intensive covert monitoring and investigation by the federal government, under the provisions of the Patriot Act. Banks, corporations and private organizations in general also collect an immense amount of personal and financial data for credit and marketing purposes. In short, these governmental and private organizations now have considerable power over "individual autonomy and decision making" thanks to these new technologies (Solove, 2006, p. 2).

Attention getter: I was checking my email and I ran across a message from PayPal, a popular internet site for processing online payments, that indicated that my account was being frozen due to suspicious activity and then asked me to verify personal information. I know for a fact that PayPal never asks for personal information via email so, I was being targeted for a scam to gather personal information. I wondered, how safe am I really, how much of my information can be used against me? Against anyone? I decided to investigate the phenomenon of the invasion of privacy and the business of information gathering in order to determine the overall damage done to those of us who trust supposedly secure websites, devices and businesses.

Information gathering, through networking, social media, and both on and offline storage have made it easier to collect information about an individual than ever before, with many concerns having arisen over the years about privacy and the ability to protect that privacy. As debates over personally identifiable information continue, one cornerstone remains a constant, ethics. Ethics are defined as “the standard by which human actions can be judged right and wrong (Online, 2012)”, but even that can be debated when discussed within the realm of information technology. Have you ever been to an internet shopping site and “trusted” the secure connection? Essentially, you are entrusting an inanimate system developed by an individual or group

Today we can’t imagine our existence without the Internet, it came to our everyday life not so long ago, but now everything requires the Internet, whether you need to fill out a job application, check your card balance, pay the bill, take a college class or keep in touch with your friends and relatives. Progressively, people are revealing personal information about themselves and others online. Anyone can quickly capture information and images wherever he goes, and then can share it with the whole world at the one click of the button. Any stranger can take a picture of you and post it on the Internet, or somebody that you know can share your personal secret with an entire planet. Your kids might be posting confidential information about

Internet privacy has become a major political and social focus ten years ago. But few people understand the origin of this idea. Modern digital encryption software can be traced back to the "cypherpunks" of California in the 1990s (a punk with cyber punk). Everyone is radical activists and early adopters of computer technology, interested in political and social influences. However, many West Coast Liberals were raging for the dawn of a new generation of electronic age, and these miracles found that network computing might indicate the golden age of national spies and control. They all believe that the great political issue of the day is whether the governments of the world will use the Internet to monitor personal freedom and privacy through digital surveillance, or whether spontaneous people will destroy or even disrupt digital computing through subversive tools and promise.