The Sharing of Personal Data by Mobile Phone Companies

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

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.

In the past decade, the number of internet users in the United States and worldwide has grown dramatically with an estimated 218 million US citizens having

Technology has become more accessible to the point it has become easier for government to watch everyone's move. In this generation technology takes over everyone's daily life, where people wakes up and the first thing is look at is the phone. A phone there are many things on it, like text, pictures and videos. Phones can do many things, but there is a possibility where the government can tap into a phone and look through it. The government can watch everyone’s: text, history, private info, and pictures. Government has no right to looking through people’s personal info because it violates Fourth amendment, Blackmail, and Creates fear.

The article called, The End of Privacy by Adam L. Penenberg, demonstrates the easy access an intruder can have to someone’s private information in today’s digital world with just a few taps on the keyboard, and a phone. Making your private information unprotected and defenseless. Penenberg also describes transition from mainframe computers to desktop PCs making private information vulnerable. He also reveals that marketers and busybodies have more customer data than ever. He also illustrates the advances of search methods that cyber criminals have up their sleeve, how the misrepresent themselves in order to puncture through the credit bureaus, and the Federal reserve database, spilling out all of your financial information, social security,

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

Performing everyday tasks have become much simpler here in the 21st century. With advances in technology making it possible to live such easy lives, the world is now at humanities fingertips. People can now keep their entire lives with them in their pockets in the form of a cell phone; but due to the fact that technology is so new and advanced, no one has been able to deal with the major issues of having this luxury, such as privacy violations of personal information and who should be allowed to access this information when in a time of need. In recent news, the FBI has filed a court case against one of the largest technological companies, Apple, for not allowing them access into a phone to further an investigation. This case has asked more

In the article “That’s No My Phone. That’s My Tracker”, Peter Maass, suggest in a seemingly, unbiased fashion, that unconsciously we are letting ourselves be tracked and investigated by simply using our cell phones, “Every year, private companies spend millions of dollars developing new services that track, store and share the words, movements and even the thoughts of their

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.

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

“Anyone who has made a call, sent a text, or done anything on the internet has their information filed into a database”(Hertzburg 1).

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)

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.

At this instant, if one remains connected to the internet via smartphone, laptop, smart watch, or any other connected device, that being acts as a source of information for companies to use. People wonder how much spying the government and companies truly conduct in, and along came Edward Snowden in two-thousand-thirteen to expose how much is really tracked. Notably, Tom Geller, author of “In Privacy Law, It’s the U.S. vs. the World”, states, “His 2013 exposé of spying practices revealed the U.S. was secretly collecting protected European data, often via U.S. companies like Facebook” (Gellar 21). The whistleblowing act done by Edward Snowden has internet privacy becoming more of a political issue which is beneficial to the individuals who browse

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