Pros And Cons Of Modern Day Privacy

With the seemingly exponential propagation of inexpensive digital communications technologies over recent years, the general public is becoming more aware of the issues surrounding information privacy and government surveillance in the digital age. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a smart-phone has to be wary of how they use their private information for fear of that information being collected and used in a way contrary to their wishes. "Leaky" smartphone apps that transmit private information across the internet can be unethically used by government agencies. The issue of privacy is a balancing act; the public usually wants increased privacy and the government usually wants increased access.

If we discuss the right of privacy then the first question comes in front of us that What is right to privacy? Is this really beneficial and what is pro and con of Right to privacy and what entity can be considered inside of this right and when it is introduced as publically and answer is, the privilege to security suggest to the idea that one's close to home data is shielded from open investigation is know as Right to Privacy, it is also a part of The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ensures that-

Individuals should be allowed their privacy in all manners of lifestyles as long as their actions are deemed legal within the realms of their culture. Due to the exponential development of technology over the past century, the personal lives of women, men, and children alike no longer are granted the luxury of possessing a private life. Cell phones, gadgets that track location, cameras, recorders, wireless signals, smart watches, and other items of technology saturate the lifestyles millions of Americans. In my own experience, my Google enabled cell phone, tracks my location in “real time”; meaning, at the arrival of a new location, I am bombarded with notifications that alert me of nearby restaurants, updates regarding news in my general vicinity, and traffic conditions on neighboring streets. Although this information sometimes serves a useful purpose, I often times worry more about the information Google possesses about me and my whereabouts than the closest Applebee’s in my area.

The Internet has done wonderful things for our world. Knowledge of practically anything can be obtained through the Internet. And now, with the booming of Social Media, that includes people. Nearly every person can be found online with information pertaining to their interests, their family, and even to their exact location. This shows how useful the Internet truly is, allowing us the ability to connect with others and share information about ourselves at any time, it’s an incredibly useful technology. At the same time, however, this incredible ease of finding personal information has created some issues relating to personal privacy.

Many of us take advantage of the internet in our daily lives now, in fact now there are more devices connected to the internet than the entire human population of our planet. Cisco believes that by 2020 the total things connected to the internet will surpass 50 billion. That doesn’t even include all the devices and things not connected; such as a cell phone without battery. A new form of internet systems is beginning to emerge, and in the coming years it will see huge breakthroughs throughout the 21st century. The internet of things will change many aspects of people’s lives.

With modern technology you can be tracked anywhere you go as long as you are online. This is because all of the different companies collect data on everything your device does. Companies are collecting bulk data for advertising purposes. This happens without the customers even knowing. If companies follow a model without collecting data for advertisement they could lose $33 billion in the first five years. Some companies such as Ford put GPS systems in their vehicles, this worries consumers because of who the companies will share the information with. With the increase in technology there are increased ways to violate the previous laws set by countries on the issue of privacy. Zaru said “Spyware and tracking cookies collect data about your search history, your age, location, interests, friends, items you liked but didn't purchase and the amount of time you spend on a website”(Zaru). This means that companies can take tons of information from their consumers and they wouldn’t even know. They can give other companies your information which violates people's privacy. Collecting data is a problem, many cases the data is collected without consent for the company's

Most technology allows users to control privacy settings on their devices such as passcodes, location services, and a lock on personal photos. These privacy settings allow users to control what they would like others to see, or what they would like to keep private. Although these settings were created to provide privacy for its users, information is not really being protected because government officials and companies still has access. For example, fitness tracking devices are an issue in today’s society that causes tensions between privacy and public safety. This wearable electronic device is claimed to monitor one’s physical fitness and daily fitness activity. However, the controversial issue is to whether or not fitness tracking devices collects people’s location, gender, age, and name and sell users data to other companies. Users store their personal information on these tracking devices only to keep track of their personal activity,

"The Constitution was written in very general language, which has resulted in ambiguity about where national power and authority end and state power and authority begin" (Fine, 2016). In other words, American Federalism, a system of government where people distribute power between national and state governments. The constitution gives each government their own power, but they also share some power and responsibilities. All people living in the United States have the right to privacy. The privacy of American citizens was a Supreme Court decision, which over the years has established that the right to privacy is a basic human right. The right to privacy is often protected by certain laws. For example, the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act that protects the health information of individuals, The Privacy of Children on the Internet, The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the Federal Trade Commission that enforces the right to privacy in several ways and many other laws that help citizens maintain their rights to privacy. These are some of the national and state policy that would help me explain the advantages and disadvantages of the privacy laws.

Long gone are the days of beautifully hand written letters to our loved ones, sprayed with cologne, sealed with kisses or stuffed with rose petals. Our present and future weighs heavily on smartphones, iPads, and computers. These items are our links to social media, twitter, blogs, and a plethora of social interactions without us leaving our home.

First of all, in their 2014 BBC article “Americans feel the tensions between privacy and security concerns,” authors Adam Blenford & Christine Jeavans explains how fast the internet is growing and how digital data transfer across the world (Blendford, Jeavans). By explaining these, the article reveals how vulnerable the biggest data source, internet, is and how easy it is for the government to access others’ data. The authors elaborate in detail on the data pathways saying that, “If, for example, a student living in London sends an email to a friend in Brazil, the message will hop around the network and will often travel through a backbone firm like Level 3 Communications in the USA…” This implies that if the government simply gets access to the backbone, they can collect all the data passing through. In the article,

In today’s busy technocratic world, the context of privacy in the face of new cyber technologies is ever more pertinent as technology reaches ever further into ones personal lives with; consumer privacy, medical privacy, employee and workplace privacy (Tavani, 2011).

President Trump had recently signed a congressional resolution in the repeal for internet privacy and the protection of peoples’ information. This policy was created during the Obama era by the Federal Communications Commission to protect and hide information from certain company providers from using the subscriber’s information. The repeal allows telecommunication companies to track and use the information provided by customers with ease to market and sell to others. Republicans believe these rules during the Obama era were unfair due to the restrictions that was put on broadband providers such as AT&T and Comcast while certain competition or web based companies like Facebook who use the data from those who also sign onto those sites. These same providers had suffered from the backlash of certain statements of the FFC and the rules that were not in effect. There was also the misinformed idea that they were the only ones the law pointed towards when the popular websites are not covered by the same regulations.

Unfortunately, many people even without their knowledge are violating many ethical principles such as trust, respect and security every day. Mostly a smartphone user has at least one social media app or a chat app installed. Chat apps are used to share very sensitive and private data, such as a conversation between a husband and wife, bank and transaction details, residence address, calendar schedule, etc. and social apps to share mostly photos, videos and concerns on various topics. For an example, you may share a group photo on Facebook where others in that photo also visible to many people according to your privacy settings. Nevertheless, do you always ask permission from each friend in a group photo before you share it? If I conduct a survey on this, most probably it would end with the answer of “no” which means this act clearly violates UDHR article 12 and ECHR article 8. Smartphone users widely use chat apps to text messages and send personal photos and most of these apps store these data on their servers. So where is the privacy of using these kind of apps? Do not people know this? Even they knew about the lack of privacy and security in here, still most people use these apps because of its convenient and ease of use. Government authorities are one party who may have access to these private data in a country, with or without users’ knowledge. NSA spying scandal, which was leaked by a former contractor for the CIA, Edward Snowden on

In this paper I will analyze the interpretations of privacy and personal liberty employed by the rulings of United States Supreme Court cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut, Roe v. Wade, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and propose a notion of privacy and personal liberty that strikes an ideal balance between individual autonomy and the interest of the state.

If we discuss the right of privacy, then the first question comes in front of us that What is right to privacy? Is this really beneficial and what is pro and con of Right to privacy and what entity can be considered inside of this right and when it is introduced as publicly, and answer is, the privilege to security suggest to the idea that one's close to home data is shielded from open investigation is known as Right to Privacy, it is also a part of The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ensures that-