Online Privacy - Why do I need it?

The age of Internet which we live in today is truly a remarkable age to live in. The power an average person has at their fingertips today surpasses anything in humankind's history. But as Spider-Man's uncle Ben said - "With great power comes great responsibility", that power has to be balanced with caution.

 

The Good

Everyone is aware of the great things that Internet has enabled us to achieve, from coming together to tackle some difficult problems to watching cat videos as a stress buster after a long day's work. 😺

 

The Data

I recently started thinking about how much data do these companies collect about me. I think on some level everyone is aware that these tech companies collect data and we are so invested in these platforms that we don't want to know what data they are collecting and what they are doing with it. After all 'Ignorance is Bliss'. 

I use Facebook sparingly and like most people having Android phones, I use Google products for many other things. Facebook collects data about you not only when you are on its platform but also when you are browsing the general web. Here's a great link to know about how Facebook collects the data and how it uses it.

Google is equally, if not more, zealous about collecting your data. If you go into your Google Account Settings, in the left pane you will see sections which you can browse through. You will see that Google records almost every click on your mobile since you are always logged in to your Google account on your Android phone.

 

The Bad

Most of the features that these companies provide do require our data. But the problem is these companies collect other data about us even when we have not explicitly granted them permission. On top of that this data is shared between tech companies for their benefit. Case in point is the Cambridge Analytica case where this company was given access to Facebook user data without their permission. So can we really trust these companies with our data?

The whole business model of these companies is based on ads. The products offered by these companies are free because these companies don't sell their products, they sell us, to the advertisers. That's why you see that you click on one product in Amazon and then that product follows you all over the Internet. To know more about this you can watch The Social Dilemma docudrama film.

 

The Question

Before I go on to an investigative journey I would like to address the most important question that comes to mind when the online privacy topic comes up - "I am not doing anything wrong on the Internet, I have nothing to hide. So what if these companies collect my data?"

Imagine a scenario where you have a person following you, a stalker, watching your every move. This stalker knows about all your habits, about your interests, about your friends, what makes you happy, who do you like, what are your political preferences, where you live, your phone number and all other details about you that you yourself might not know. Now this person always maintains a distance from you, never interferes in your life and never interacts with you. They are just there, just watching you. Since 'Knowledge is Power', are you comfortable with the amount of power that this person has? Are you sure that this person will not turn out to be bad? Do you know what this person is talking about you to their friends? How do you know that this person's friends will not use the information they got about you for bad things?

If the above paragraph made you squeamish, then you need to give a damn about what data these online platforms are collecting about you.

The Solution

 There are some simple things that we can do to control what we share with these platforms. For things that are not in our control like location data that these companies collect, there are workarounds available which obfuscate or limit the data. I will be covering my experiments on data privacy in following posts. You can follow them and let me know if there are some things that you follow which I should consider.

For now, go to settings of every social media platform you use and see what all permissions you have given these companies. That is the first step towards online privacy.