Privacy Versus Security: Personal Data and Internet Use, Is Your Privacy Being Eroded?

With the rise of the internet, some people argue that privacy no longer exists. From the 2013 revelations of government surveillance of citizens’ communications to companies that monitor their employees’ internet usage, this argument seems to be increasingly true. Yet, Harvard Law professor Charles Fried states that privacy, “is necessarily related to ends and relations of the most fundamental sort: respect, love, friendship and trust” (Fried 477). However, Fried is not arguing that in a world where privacy, in its most simple terms, is becoming scarce that these foundations of human interactions are also disappearing. Instead, Fried expands on the traditional definition of privacy while contesting that privacy, although typically viewed

Ever feel like you are being watched? How about having the feeling like some one is following you home from school? Well that is what it will be like if users do not have the privacy on the Internet they deserve. EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), a advocacy group that has been fighting the Clinton Administration for tougher online consumer protection laws, and other privacy protection agencies have formed to protect the rights and privileges of the Internet user. With the U.S. Government, EPIC has had to step in and help small companies and Internet users with their own privacy problems, hackers getting into their systems and ruining the networks, and crackers stealing and decrypting private

As human beings and citizens of the world, everyone values their privacy. It is a right that is often looked over and taken for granted by most. Since the beginning of time, there have been concerns about individuals’ rights to privacy and their personal information remaining confidential. Our founding fathers had concerns about this which is why, “…this right has developed into

Privacy is what allows people to feel secure in their surroundings. With privacy, one is allowed to withhold or distribute the information they want by choice, but the ability to have that choice is being violated in today’s society. Benjamin Franklin once said, “He who sacrifices freedom or liberty will eventually have neither.” And that’s the unfortunate truth that is and has occurred in recent years. Privacy, especially in such a fast paced moving world, is extremely vital yet is extremely violated, as recently discovered the NSA has been spying on U.S. citizens for quite a while now; based on the Fourth Amendment, the risk of leaked and distorted individual information, as well as vulnerability to lack of anonymity.

Over the past few years, the development of the Internet and the intrusive surveillance capabilities of these technologies have caused privacy to become a major political and social issue for millions of Americans who go online.  Companies employ a variety of tools to gather marketable information on American citizens.  Most of the use of this information is for personalized advertisement and to create databases of target audiences.  While these activities may appear to be nothing more than annoyances for a majority of Americans, there is the hidden danger of the loss of privacy.

Privacy, over the years, has become something more or less irrelevant to people. People realize every social media website, every technological gadget acquired, every email, and more, is monitored by the government or by a disturbing next-door neighbor. Yet, it is as though people ignore such possibilities and move on with life. At first, the lack of privacy was due to a safety issue- understandable. Today, although it is still for safety, people with the wrong mentality have the ability to find information that is harmful to another person.

In today’s society, the word “privacy” has become ubiquitous. When discussing whether government surveillance and data collection pose a threat to privacy, the most common retort against privacy advocates – by those in favor of databases, video surveillance, spyware, data mining and other modern surveillance measures – is this line: "If I’m not doing anything wrong, what would I have to hide?" The allowance of the government’s gathering and analysis of our personal information stems from an inadequate definition of what privacy is and the eternal value that privacy possesses. The adherents of the “nothing-to-hide” argument say that because the information will never be disclosed to the public, the “privacy interest is minimal, and the security interest in preventing terrorism is much more important.” 1 In an era where the patterns we leave behind will inevitably become the focus for whatever authority, the issue of privacy affects more than just individuals hiding a wrong. In this essay, I will explore the state of online privacy in wake of the government’s warrantless data collection. Respectively, the nothing-to-hide argument and its key variants in more depth.

Some of the most contentious and recurrent argumentative dialogues regarding civil liberties stem from what seems at face value, like a relatively elementary idea the notion of personal privacy. This debate could never be more relevant than in present day society, where globalization and advanced communications technologies have synergized to form a ubiquitous digital library of shared information. The specific example of the delicate balance between personal privacy and national security here in the United States has only further convoluted the issue the debate of whether and to what caliber citizens have privacy rights is hotly contested. As technology

America is an individualized society, where personal privacy is valued. Current exposure is increasing, however, due to technological factors. Those factors include social networking, YouTube, Twitter, and other forms of mass expression. The effects of this increased exposure can range from embarrassment to risks to personal safety on one hand to greater exposure to other cultures and a better understanding of the lives of others.

The online world has recently changed from being able to make a phone call in privacy to having someone being able to hear your every word, without you even knowing. Our value of privacy has changed over the years as we have somewhat taken for granted the privacy we originally had. Some could even say that we have arrived back in the future in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, with the lack of privacy that we currently possess.

Internet security is defined as a process to create rules and actions to take to protect against attacks over the internet. An example of internet security is an online system that prevents credit card numbers from being stolen on a shopping website. Whereas internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning storing, repurposing, provision to third parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via the internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Both internet security and privacy should definitely be monitored by the government, however it should only be monitored to a certain extent. There should be only certain situations to what can be monitored. For example, it makes sense to monitor the vast majority of the population to track what people

Internet service providers, depending on the state in which they are located, have different policies regarding the collection and storing of personal information or data of their subscribed users. In the United States of America there are many legislative proposals such as “Do not track me online act of 2011” or “Do not track kids act of 2011”, such proposals were shaken by the lack of a strong basis and sustainability. Everything changed in 201222, when the security control and the quality of personal data protection have been passed on both to the consumer's concern and to the concern of search engine companies. The report of the Federal Commission states that through this protection, the consumer will choose if he wants his information to be used by third parties. This report was subsequently integrated into consumer privacy law, a report proposed by US President Barack Obama23. Giants such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or Mozilla will offer the user the ability to choose whether he wants his data to be used by other companies. The only problem with this proposal is that there is no agent or organization applying this measure, the

The words, “Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say” were said by Edward Snowden who is a computer professional in America. Similarly, the essays “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” “Web Users Get as Much as They Give,” and “Facebook Is Using You” from Nicholas Carr, Jim Harper, and Lori Andrews respectively points out that the internet privacy is good and bad. However, the articles by Carr and Andrews are based on the negative side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is not good. On the other hand, Harper’s article is based on the positive side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is good and scary, but people need to be careful of their own information and browsing histories, and websites. Jim Harper’s essay is more relevant and reasonable than the Nicholas Carr and Lori Andrews’s essays. However, Harper seems more persuasive to readers because he believes that the internet is good if people use it in a right way, whereas Carr and Andrews believe that the internet is not good at all.

Internet activist Eli Pariser says, "You should know who has your personal data, what they have, and how it is used." Chen-Chi Shing describes internet privacy is essentially the ability to control what information other individuals can view about another online (Shing, 31). Any internet user deals with their own privacy online, but may see that there is not a definite way to guarantee it. With current laws and policies, there are holes that certain people take advantage. Privacy is very hard to define in an evolving society and may be viewed in ways that others see differently. There are different perspectives on internet privacy from the eyes of the American internet user, companies, and the United States Government.

As citizens of the United States of America, it is expected to feel a sense of security and privacy whether at home or elsewhere. This is why there is law enforcement that helps keep that sense of security and privacy locally while the military protects and keeps that same feeling internationally. With the advancement of technology, with the Internet especially some would think that reinforcing that feeling of security and privacy would be easy to do. But for quite some time now, we're learning that not only is this a complicated task but also in some cases you can have one but at the cost the other. For example some contend that security at the expense of privacy is not just un-American but unconstitutional. This paper will discuss some of