The Importance Of Information Privacy

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

Modern Americans see privacy as one of the greatest freedoms. When Edward Snowden revealed the NSA surveillance program, the citizens of the United States were appalled by the extent of access the NSA had to personal information. However, according to Dan Tapscott in his essay, “Should We Ditch the Idea of Privacy?” we post just as many details daily on our numerous social media outlets. The majority of the information we freely post is not meaningful and does no harm to us by being public, yet there is a dangerous side to our open-book nature.

"We collect the content and other information you provide when you use our Services, including when you sign up for an account, create or share, and message or communicate with others” (Hachman). Each day people live with a false security that they are protected and maintain a sense of privacy. Citizens misplace their trust in social media and technology, and divulge their personal information in ignorance of the repercussions that may arise. Users say the advances in technology and social media will not affect their privacy; however, it is proven that these advances can be a harbinger of both danger and discontent.

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.

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.

There is a large quantity of writings documenting the reaction of individuals’ concerns over the NSA revelations. However, there are far less writings on the notion of privacy on a corporate scale. To begin examining such a theory of privacy, it makes sense to analyze the views Americans as a group have about privacy. Fortunately, in 2015, Mary Madden and Lee Rainie performed a series of polls and surveys to analyze America’s perception of privacy. In this study, more than 90% of adults said they cared if their

Acquisti and Gross point out that the unprecedented growth of online social networks including but not limited to Facebook and MySpace has brought with itself serious security and privacy concerns. In this particular study, the authors found out that privacy issues do not discourage individuals from being members of the network. Further, the authors also found out that even individuals who happen to be rather concerned about their privacy reveal a great deal of their personal information after joining the network. This study is highly relevant to my research as it clearly demonstrates that individuals do not take privacy issues seriously on joining Facebook. As the authors point out, the study in this case secured its support from the "CMU Berkman Faculty Development Fund, CMU CyLab and the Data Privacy Laboratory." Thus in addition to being relevant, the study can also be regarded credible.

Privacy and the conflicts associated with it that citizens face are some of the most controversial topics in the world today. One of the main conflicts that citizens deal with is if the government is spying on us all the time and that if people feel that this it is an invasion of their privacy. Peter Singer evaluates on this topic of the good and bad of privacy in his essay, “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets”. He explains how technology has changed the way people think about privacy. People know and share all kinds of information about themselves through social media.

In earlier times, communities were small and intimate. Personal information was preserved in the memories of friends, family, and neighbors, and it was spread by gossip and storytelling. Today, information is spreading through massive electronic record systems and databases. Privacy become very important and growing concern in every country around the world. Modern computing technologies and the Internet have generated the capacity to collect, manipulate, and share massive quantities of data. In this paper, I will be discussing the advantages and disadvantages of public access to citizens’ private data and other topics on the value of digital privacy.

Internet privacy, a subset to computer privacy, involves the mandate of personal privacy concerning the storing, repurposing, provision to third parties, and displaying of information relating to oneself via Internet. The controversy of privacy concern has being articulated form the beginnings of large scale computer sharing. According to Maureen Dorney in her article, “Privacy and the Internet” she states that in 1993 there were already 83% of Americans that were concerned with threats to personal privacy. In fact, this was not the only year in which data was collected. She adds that in 1970 there were an increasing number of populations being threat of privacy violations. Since then, the controversy prompted several members of congress to call for increased privacy protection for data

In chapter 5, Spinello (2011) found that privacy is becoming a major challenge for all different segments of society. This is occurring in a number of different areas including: consumer spending / buying patterns, inside the home / workplace and the way this technology is applied. Moreover, there is a discussion about the various vulnerabilities of the Internet and how issues such cybercrime / spying have resulted directly from these increases. To address these difficulties, both the US and the EU have adopted various laws governing how data is collected and utilized. (Spinello, 2011)

In his October 2014 TEDGlobal speech, “Why Privacy Matter?”, Glenn Greenwald argues the importance of privacy and how people constantly crave for privacy. He references Edward Snowden’s leaked archives as well as two well-known CEOs, Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg, to support his argument. The purpose of his speech was to inform and persuade his audience how privacy still matters and those who say otherwise are lying. Greenwald gave an emotional appeal to successfully reach out to the audience and persuade them. However, Greenwald’s ability to build credibility and ethos was weak and therefore, impacted his argument.

There is a concern about many users privacy worldwide. Technology is constantly upgrading and internet is being used daily worldwide. Laws are constantly changing and there are many concerns about this. In this essay, I will be talking about why

Today, individuals are sacrificing privacy in order to feel safe. These sacrifices have made a significant impact on the current meaning of privacy, but may have greater consequences in the future. According to Debbie Kasper in her journal, “The Evolution (Or Devolution) of Privacy,” privacy is a struggling dilemma in America. Kasper asks, “If it is gone, when did it disappear, and why?”(Kasper 69). Our past generation has experienced the baby boom, and the world today is witnessing a technological boom. Technology is growing at an exponential rate, thus making information easier to access and share than ever before. The rapid diminishing of privacy is leaving Americans desperate for change.

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