Should government organizations and private companies be allowed to track our online behaviors and use the data they collect about use? What are the implications of the collection and use of personal data when it comes to particular groups in society?
DIRECTIONS:
Pick one particular group to be your imagined audience. Think about why that particular group should care about the issue of online privacy--what do they have at stake? In a blog post of approximately 350-400 words, you will construct an argument based on the specific rhetorical situation you have constructed (see handout). In your argument you must use evidence from at least 3 sources (two may come from the articles we've read together, but one must come from your own research). Remember to use parenthetical citations.
Based on the rhetorical situation, make careful decisions
about the following as you craft your argument:
* Point of view: Why would your audience need to care about an issue related to online privacy? What, according to your opinion, do they have at stake? What do you want this audience to think/understand/believe/do? Make sure your claim on the issue fits the perspective of the audience.
* Structure: How will you begin? How will you organize main points? How will you end? Use the structures on the last page of your toolbox for ideas, or use some of the editorials we read for ideas.
* Examples & evidence: What kind of evidence and examples would your particular audience find convincing and compelling?
* Tone & language use: Craft your words, your metaphors, your tone for the particular audience. Again think about what they would respond to.
* Appeals: As you present your main points, examples, and evidence, what appeals would work? What kind of logical reasons and examples would resonate with this audience? As you craft your language or use imagery or anecdotes, what emotion would you go for? How would you establish a sense of trust or credibility?
* Strategies: Look back at the toolbox and remind yourself of the strategies that are at your disposal: rhetorical questions, anecdotes, allusions, imagery, figurative language, irony, etc. Use what will work with your audience.
REMEMBER TO SAVE YOUR WORK TO A GOOGLE DOC BEFORE YOU POST IT--JUST TO BE SAFE!!!
If you are looking for sources besides articles, here is an interesting podcast and TED Talk I've found:
Podcast:
http://www.wnyc.org/story/propublica-facebook-algorithms-bias-privacy/
TED Talk:
There’s something inherently unsettling about the idea of someone watching you without your knowledge, and yet the Internet is backlit with millions of strangers watching each other. We scroll through social media, we look up our favorite YouTubers, we listen to other people's’ playlists and read their works and gawk at what they’re wearing, what they look like, and what they say. We’re supersaturated in this culture we’ve created for ourselves that feeds off of the need to validate yourselves by using other people as a standard.
ReplyDeleteBut wait. There’s someone else there. People are constantly wary of them, paranoid, for some unfathomable reason, of being watched. Because you are being watched by someone else. Ad companies and search engines dominate the Internet and track what seems like your every move. Only to use it to make money, but the buzz around the issue of privacy has made this issue into a “problem” that everyone has been exposed to at some point or another.
In saying that, I think that some people are overreacting in regards to this topic. Obviously nothing is going to be perfect- the regulations on ad companies and such are always going to give us cause to complain. But down to their essences, companies want this information because they need money. Imagine that you get a search engine- the one that we’ve grown attuned to using, one that’s intuitive and gives you your search history when you need it, one that gives you the entire world of the Internet right there on the other side of the screen- and we expect to get it at absolutely no cost at all?
It goes without saying that most people don’t specifically want your information, they want money. Since when has it been any different? You get a service, you pay money for it. It’s just like going to the store. You can’t get something as massive as Google, or as Microsoft, or as any of the services we use constantly, for free. Did we really think that we could just get something as large as the Internet for free? That an entire digital universe could be at our fingertips, and we would never have to give anything in return? Unless we want to shift through the trillions of links ourselves, instead of having it done in less than a second by Google, let’s all admit that it’s a tradeoff we’re willing to make. In fact, only 12% of people have gone to the extent of using a public computer to browse anonymously, and only 11% of people have asked someone else to delete something about them online. (Madden, “Americans’ Attitudes About Privacy, Security, and Surveillance.”)
DeleteIt’s quite common for people to ask: “How can you consent to something you don’t understand?” (Lomas, “The Online Privacy Lie Is Unraveling”). I mean, we don’t understand how life is created, but we still consent to having children. We don’t know how all of our food is made, how all of our medicines are made and how they work, but we still use them. Because we know they work. Because they provide us with the services that we require.
After Edward Snowden leaked information from the NSA, and suddenly we were all acutely aware that we were being “watched”, we began to look around for others that have been watching, and, reasonably enough, we latched onto ad companies. So we made a big deal about things, and we didn’t even really stop to think. Those who have had the most exposure to information about the government surveillance programs also have some of the strongest views about data retention limits for certain kinds of organizations. 61% of people who had heard a lot about government surveillance agreed that they were unsure that records from ad companies were safe, while only 47% of people who had heard only a little about surveillance were unsure regarding this matter (Madden, “Americans’ Attitudes About Privacy, Security, and Surveillance.”). We all automatically assumed that they were out to get us, because Snowden’s leak had painted the NSA in such a bad light, and we fed off of that fear of an invisible watcher, even though we didn’t have anything to fear. We thought that just because they were slinking around in the shadows, we suddenly had to fear them. But if you think about it, what do ad companies want from consumers? They’re ad companies. What else do you think they want, besides money?
The thing about ad companies is that they need the consumer to put their trust in them before they can deliver the service. For companies like Google, they deliver the service first and then they collect their rewards. So it’s pretty much natural that ad companies piggyback off of companies that consumers automatically put their trust in. It’s not that ad companies are untrustworthy, it’s that they have to battle harder to gain trust. We’re taught to automatically not trust things that are trying to sell us something, but that’s how they earn their money. How else can you provide a service, if no one knows it’s available?
DeleteThe implications of the uses of your personal data are pretty clear when it comes to ad companies. They take your information, they use it to identify what kind of ads to send to you. There are people who have expertise in quantitative analysis, they use probability algorithms to match you to a certain demographic, and they “share information publicly to show trends about the general use of [their] services” (Google, “Privacy Policy”), so they can offer you products and services catered to you. (Angwin, “The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets") They aren’t going to trace your information back to you in particular and single you out from the crowd and monitor your every move. They’re picking your file and thousand of millions of other files to send ads. Your “personal” information is one of billions of other pieces of information.
Ad companies see you as they always have - as a resource. You see them as a resource, and they see you as one. It’s a relationship between consumer and vendor that has always been there. The two of you get what you need from the other, and you move on. You see ads up in magazines- which are catered to the general reader of that magazine in particular. You see ads up in shop windows and in newspapers and at the back of books and in your mailbox. These are ads targeted for you in particular. Online, things are no different. They gather information from you so that they can send you ads. That’s it. They don’t get your Social Security number, they don’t even want it, that’s illegal. They don’t get the things you consider important because what’s important to you is not what’s important to them. They don’t want to spy on you, they want to sell you things. And while it’s equally as irritating, it’s not wrong. Since when has selling things to people been prohibited? There’s a thin haze of negative connotation around online tracking done by ad companies, and it really shouldn’t be there. This is just the natural result of the creation of an entirely new world, the Internet.
But it’s an invasion of privacy, isn’t it? some people might ask. A moral fallacy? There shouldn’t be someone watching us in our digital world that can follow us around. This is not allowed. It’s “wrong”. Well, a few things come into play here. First, the definition of personal privacy, and secondly, the rules of a new world that we have created.
DeleteWhat I think needs to be considered when defining personal privacy is that “[w]e’re all hypocrites about online privacy. Our tolerance for privacy infringement is based on the likeability of the targeted celebrity.” (Norton, “We’re all Hypocrites About Online Privacy”). If you think that ad companies placing you in a specific demographic so they can show you relevant ads is an invasion of privacy, then what we are doing on social media is much of the same and sometimes worse. At least ad companies have a reason for their actions. Our actions are impulses of sheer nosiness and the strange human impulse to elevate yourself by condemning others.
Another thing about personal privacy is that our standards contradict each other- when the situation suddenly involves us, things change. More eloquently put, “We must also make the embarrassing and completely hypocritical admission that if we catch them looking into our living rooms, not only do we expect not to be judged by what they find, we expect them to be punished for looking in the first place.” (Norton, “We’re all Hypocrites About Online Privacy”) We should stop holding double standards and either make this “invasion” a universally accepted practice for both companies and the common public, or push to change ourselves as well as reform privacy policies.
What does personal privacy even mean anymore? The ability to sprawl ourselves all over the Internet however we want and not be noticed by anyone? I mean, isn’t that what people want on social media? Attention? It’s literally called social media. This kind of industry thrives off of the constant, human need for validation, and yet ad companies are not allowed to look at this information, so blatantly smeared all over the Internet? How is that fair? We’re allowed to look in on people’s lives, and judge them, and do so much worse than ad companies do. Where we judge they have algorithms based off of statistics and numbers. Where we accumulate prejudiced dislike, they see nothing but a long, stark field of billions of pieces of data, each one with a name that is faceless and impersonal. They don't want to offend people. They don't want to stick their noses into your business. They want to make money, and this is one of the ways that they do it.
And as for the rules of a new world that we have created. Well. The Internet is a funny thing. You can’t see it, yet it hovers behind screens, a world so large and unfathomable that to immerse ourselves in it without a guide like a search engine is to drown in a trillion links, an arbitrary web that runs from link to link. What goes onto the Internet is always there - everyone has heard this before - you can’t truly take something down, once it’s up. Anyone can get on the Internet. Anyone can see. We’ve made the Internet into an invisible extension of the world that we can see, but for some reason, we expect the rules there to be the same. This isn’t the world lined with roads, it’s not the one where things are separated by physical space. Time doesn’t work the same. Space doesn’t exist in the way we know it to. If we think that we can somehow draw the blinds in our digital sphere and arrest people who trespass into our property, we’re wrong. You can’t trespass if the space doesn’t belong to anyone.
DeleteYou can get to places in less than a second. You can pull up two trillion hits for a search query that's incredibly specific, all in 0.75 seconds. You can’t draw the blinds on the Internet. And we know this. We scroll through yards and yards of social media and sample videos from YouTube. We look ourselves up and look other people up all the time. We have this air of self righteousness, and we think that if we’re not the ones snooping around, then it must be someone with malintentions trying to stalk us. When in reality- surprise!- it’s just advertising. They want to sell you something. Something you might like. If you like the product, and they like your money, where’s the problem?
After the hype dies down and we can look at the whole thing, it’ll be easier to see the reasoning of both sides, and make a more levelheaded decision. In defending the side of ad companies, I hope to provide a counterweight to the wave of blind panic over online surveillance. I think that it’s totally reasonable for ad companies to do what they are doing now- I’m not saying that everything is perfect- I’m just suggesting that maybe we have to calm ourselves about the whole thing before we rain down the condemnation on people who don’t deserve it.
A lot of the time, the uneasiness comes from the whole concept of an invisible watcher. But thanks to people like Snowden, who have raised the awareness about these issues, we’re now introducing the ideas of marketing and government security measures being implemented on the Internet. This is a relatively new concept, and if you take a step back and look at things, the Internet is a relatively new thing as well. We’re still getting used to things; establishing the rules. At this point the only thing we have left is to acclimatize ourselves to these new developments.
That's a ton of text, I'm sorry
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ReplyDeleteAre you doing everything to keep your children safe? Whether you realize it or not, instead of protecting your children, you may unknowingly be putting them in danger. From simply buying your children birthday gifts to getting them phones, you are exposing them to a dangerous world of tracking.
ReplyDeleteMany of you have no idea to what extent your children are being tracked. Companies claim to collect information to send targeted ads to optimize your children’s experience. However, they are not doing this in your children’s favor but rather, for their own monetary profit. Many of you may be thinking, so what if they get money—they are running a business after all. And what’s wrong with personalized ads—aren’t they good for our children so they can see and get information about things that they are actually interested in? Even though personalized ads may be beneficial to some extent, there are many more factors that must be considered when it comes to the true intentions of tracking.
Next time your children plead you to take them to Disney World, the place where “dreams come true,” think again. Are your children’s dreams really coming true or are they disguising some other underlying intentions? Disney has created a MyMagic wristband system that has “an unprecedented ability to gather reams of personal data about the tens of millions of people who flock to Disney World theme parks each year” (Garcia, “Disney’s New ‘MyMagic’ Wristbands to Turn Big Data Into Big Profits”). These bands have the ability to track people’s vacation plans and even which specific rides they go on. Disney claims that the more information you give them, the more they will be able to tailor services to your advantage. However, many people are rightly untrusting of Disney’s ability to keep their information safe. Even if it is not Disney’s fault, hackers can get to your information. Disney says that it will not share information with other companies until guests sign off first. As parents, you should not, under any circumstances, sign off to give out your children’s information as there are always people who can get to it and use it against your children. One example of this is when a hacker broke into the records of VTech, an educational toy company, stealing personal information and pictures of more than six million children. The hacker found out “who the kids were, who were their parents, and effectively find where the kids lived and all this creepy information” (Franceschi-Bicchierai, “At School And At Home, How Much Does The Internet Know About Kids?”).
The new Hello Barbie may be the most popular toy on the shelf but is it really the best thing for your child? The toy can easily be hacked into and used as a surveillance device that tracks family conversations. You may be thinking that Barbie is a brand name doll and must surely be taking all precautions against hacking and release of children’s information. However, don’t let big names fool you into thinking that you are being promised better security. Large companies “Viacom, Mattel, Hasbro, and JumpStart have been ordered to pay $835,000 in fines for tracking and collecting personal data of children online” (Liberatore, “Is Barbie spying on your children?”), violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act that limits marketing to children under 13. So next time you go shopping for your kids, think before you buy. Do you really know what information is being put out there and what it can imply for your children?
In conclusion, I believe that companies should not be allowed to track, collect, and use personal data when it comes to children. This can have immediate and future effects that are harmful for the children. In the short term, hackers can easily access personal information about children and find out where they live, thus easily able to cause harm to the children. They can also commit identity theft and this can have grave effects on children in the long run as when they are older and try to open accounts, they may be denied because someone has stolen and used their identity. Students may also be denied access to colleges and later jobs if their identity has been stolen and their credit history is ruined. These implications are tragic but can and must be prevented at all costs. This will start with parents taking action to protect their children by being careful about what they buy and what information they agree to expose. Your children’s safety and successful future rest in your hands and it is up to you to take action now.
DeleteHow would you feel if a complete stranger knew almost everything about you? Pretty creepy, not the halloween kind of creepy, but the full on stalking kind of creepy, right? Now what if you had access to information, that if someone else got privy to, you would instantly lose your job, or potentially be thrown in jail? This is the kind of stress doctors have to go through every day. Doctors can be fired for violating HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), an act passed by congress which is capable of imprisoning doctors and other health officials for sharing a patient’s health or personal data without consent.
ReplyDeleteEvery so often, doctors need to enter their patient’s health info into the hospital, or clinic’s database for future reference, which they can do with, or without internet, but with trackers who are “seeking to track users offline, as well [as online], by collecting data about people's ... habits” (Angwin 1), this info could easily be collected without one’s knowledge.
Many patients who are in rehab, have health monitors (ie: portable blood monitors, and IV’s, etc.) that need to connect to the internet to transmit info to doctors. However, “by spying on you, companies can learn about your personal finances, religious beliefs, political affiliation, race, ethnic background, even health problems” (Weisbaum 1). That last one is a problem. With growing technologies such a beacons (a highly sophisticated tracking software), such info could easily be collected, and sold to your insurance company. Think about it, your insurance company can get an hourly update on your health! Every hour, you can watch your premium go up, and your coverage go down, little by little.
One might argue saying, “You can’t fault the doctor for something they have no control over!”, but according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, “Using electronic technology, ... does not mean a health care provider is a covered entity”. This means the consequences a doctor must face for trackers uncovering info, entirely depends upon whether or not the judge, or their boss is in a good mood that day. Unfortunately, that HIPAA rule can’t be changed, since doctors have, in the past, intentionally leaked patient info, so the rule must stay rigid.
As you can see, with tracking software becoming increasingly sophisticated, more health care providers are at risk of losing their job, or worse, being imprisoned, for no fault of their own. The very same people that work to keep us healthy, and save lives, at risk! What would we do without them? We would succumb to disease, and death. We would live for about 25 short, miserable years. Horrible, isn’t it? All because of an inflexible law, and some companies out there, just to stalk on you.
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DeleteTarget Audience: U.S. Citizens concerned with terrorist attacks.
ReplyDeleteImagine a terrorist attack devastates the United States, the whole country hears about it, lives are lost, complete tragedy. Days later, you learn from a news outlet that the government had the technology that could have prevented it, but didn’t use it because the people refuted it. Lives wouldn’t have been lost, no tragedy. What would you have wanted from the government then?
This is the same kind of dilemma the entire country is facing. Whether we should support the use of the PRISM program and deciding if the government’s use of it is for better or for worse. What is the PRISM program? It is a program monitored by the NSA and allows us to watch foreign terrorists through the internet. This program allows us to look through phone records to see who is calling who, and when they’re making those calls. Basically, “wireless wiretapping” is what it is. It allows the government to take a look into the activity of suspected and potential terrorists and people who are connected to them.
Some people may argue that the PRISM is a violation of privacy, saying that the government doesn’t just use it on foreign threats and enemies, but also people on home soil, with no reason to suspect them of anything. People also argue that the action itself is illegal and unconstitutional and that doing this is putting us is putting us in more danger, because of the potential hacking that could be done to the program.
In my opinion, the PRISM program benefits us in more ways than one. There is really no other way for us to go about getting this information as easily as this anymore, especially since interrogation was put to a stop, and going undercover has become so much more dangerous. Not only that, but there is proof that shows the only way the government would be looking at someone on home soil, is if they had ties to potential or suspected terrorists. So, as long as your record is clean, the government won’t look into you. The government doing this is completely legal. In fact, the information is literally given over to the government by the people, in the sense that phone companies need the information of who and when you called, in order to complete the call. The law says, that since there is no real expectation of privacy given by using a cell phone, therefore the fourth amendment does not protect you, the government has the right. Lastly, the only new danger this program put us in, is that we don’t have the advantage anymore. Now that this information is leaked, terrorists know how and when we are tracking them.
So, if the government could have stopped or prevented a terrorist attack, by being made aware of the terrorist before he had even done anything, by tracking his connections and his actions through his calls, wouldn’t you rather save the countless lives at risk than your belief of keeping your privacy, which is not even in danger of being lost?
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhy Parents Should Be Concerned With How Their Children Are Tracked and How Data Is Collected From Them When Online at School and at Home
ReplyDeletePicture this- your child or teenager is surfing the internet on their school issued device, seemingly safe from tracking and personal data collection from others.
Except they’re not.
Parents do not know that their students are being tracked and having their personal data taken from them whenever they use the internet, at home and even at school, whenever they are using a school issued device or account. Privacy advocates say that student data collection in school is “out of control” (Armerding 1) and that there is “...data collected by schools that they [students] and their parents do not control, or even know about” (Armerding 3).
Over the years, the collection of student data has gotten far more advanced. Now, companies like Gaggle exist; what is Gaggle you ask? Gaggle is a human monitoring service for school that “discovers millions of inappropriate words and images in student email, text messages, discussion boards, email attachments and computer files, leading to thousands of warnings sent to school district administrators and law enforcement every year” (Armerding 2). Companies like this have access to what the students may have viewed as private, access which constitutes a serious invasion of their privacy. According to Khaliah Barnes, the director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s student privacy project, “data gathering includes health, fitness and sleeping habits, sexual activity, prescription drug use, alcohol use and disciplinary matters. Students attitudes, sociability and even ‘enthusiasm’ are quantified, analyzed, recorded and dropped into giant data systems” ( Armerding 1). Would you want this type of personal information about your child being seen by their school? Probably not, because when the school and these companies have this information about your child, they can share it. Even if the data stays with the school, Rebecca Herold, CEO of The Privacy Professor, says that “FERPA covers educational records and PII, it “generally does not include the privacy-invasive data that is used for monitoring/tracking students,”...without audits and active regulatory oversight of school systems, it is likely that a large portion of schools do not follow the requirements”
ReplyDeleteOf course, advocates for collecting students’ online data will say that “gathering individual information on students can lead to “personalized” and “adaptive” learning platforms” (Armerding 1) and that “they [Google] have signed a voluntary but binding pledge called the Student Privacy Pledge, along with 200 other companies. And the pledge says that Google will seek parental authorization before collecting data that isn’t being used explicitly for educational purposes” (NPR Staff 2). However, the EFF, or the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that there is a “back door” for Google collecting students’ private data. When a student is logged on to their school account and uses Google applications like YouTube or Maps, Google is collecting that information and “when students use Chrome on their school-issued computers, they’re browsing the web and Google potentially has access to their entire browsing history…” (NPR Staff 2). In addition to this, Google can also use search history and collected data to advertise to your child or use it for non-educational purposes.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion- schools should not let companies like Google and Gaggle, who are often invasive when it comes to personal information, obtain and share student data that is personal or sensitive. Schools should implement security measures to ensure that students cannot have their data tracked or be traced and allow parents to monitor and remove information about their child if the want to. After all, according to the Pew Research Center, a conducted survey for adults showed that “some 74% say it is “very important” to them that they be in control of who can get information about them, and 65% say it is “very important” to them to control what information is collected about them.” (Rainie 4); shouldn’t we extend this concern to students?
ReplyDeleteSorry about the seperation, it would not let me post it all together or even reply to one without the origional being deleted.
ReplyDeleteHalf of all the adults in U.S. have their faces in facial recognition databases, and you could be one of them. Police and other law enforcement personnel all over America have used social media and unregulated databases of mugshots (disproportionately people of colour) and drivers’ licenses for identifying criminals, yet a good proportion of those in them have never committed a crime (Levin).
ReplyDeleteLast week the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) disclosed that the social media sites Facebook and Twitter had given Geofeedia, a social media monitoring company, special access to user’s data. This data was allegedly used to help police track protesters using facial recognition. A similar event occurred last year during the black lives matter protests in Baltimore — Geofeedia again allegedly aided police in the tracking of protesters using social media and facial recognition (Levin). This is illegal monitoring that infringes upon the first amendment, the right to free speech, and criminalizes lawful citizens exercising their rights.
The use of facial recognition is extremely racially biased. The disproportionate number of African American mugshots reflect the biased policing practices that are the cause for the black lives matter movement (Levin). So if this software is flawed but still extensively used by the people who are supposed to protect us, it must give accurate results, right? Wrong, in fact, facial recognition algorithms have been proven to be between five and ten percent less effective for black people than white people (Kofman). In addition one out of seven searches produces results of 50 potential people that are all innocent. The consequences of these inaccurate results can cause a lot of damage for people who have never even committed a crime (Levin).
This facial recognition is very difficult to avoid, surveillance cameras can use “real time facial recognition” to identify pedestrians in public places (Kofman).To live normally yet avoid facial recognition is difficult unless you take extreme lengths like wearing a hat with infrared LEDs in public places to hide your face from surveillance cameras (Roose 5).
The facial recognition technology is supposed to help track criminals but instead is
a flawed system that infringes upon lawful citizens’ rights, and can have negative consequences for innocent people. Law enforcement should not be able to use this data without proper oversight because it is racially biased in its results and harms African Americans, and therefore harms America as a whole.
Audience: Parents
ReplyDeleteAs a parent, you might think that your child is protected from the prying eyes of trackers, but you are wrong. One may think that the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is protecting their child, but they are wrong. Your child is being tracked right now, without your knowledge, and this is unacceptable. Organizations and tracking companies can’t continue to invade privacy and track the behavior of children.
Most parents spend the majority of their time worrying about their children, and it’s time for them to worry about their children’s safety. With children everywhere now having access to the internet, the issue of online privacy has escalated. Whether kids go on “kid-friendly” websites, or simply surf the internet, third party trackers are tracking their every step. Trackers use cookies, flash cookies, and beacons. The article “The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets” explains that “beacons, also known as “Web bugs” and “pixels,” are small pieces of software that run on a Web page. They can track what a user is doing on the page, including what is being typed or where the mouse is moving.” (Angwin 55). This shows just how much a company can find out about our children, and it’s frightening. What if a child was simply searching up the meaning of a word from Dictionary.com? 223 tracking files would end up being downloaded onto the computer, capable of tracking their every move (Angwin 19). No parent would want companies to know exactly what their child was doing.
A parent may ask, if there’s already a Children’s Privacy Act, why is online privacy still such a big deal? According to the NPR Staff, a “hacker stole personal information and photos of more than six million children after breaking into the computer records of a educational toy company, VTech” (NPR Staff 2). That’s six million children that have been deprived of their right to privacy. That’s six million children whose information shouldn’t have been on a database in the first place. And that’s a countless number of parents that have been deceived into thinking that their children wouldn’t be the victims of tracking. In fact, Google has even been guilty of tracking children outside of their education services.
Four other major toy companies were found to be violating the COPPA as well: Hasbro, Mattel, Jumpstart games, and Viacom. According to Fortune, “third-party vendors used cookies and IP addresses to track kids under 13-years-old, giving them access to some of their personal information without first receiving their parents’ approval. Sites that improperly tracked children’s online activity included Nickelodeon, American Girl, Neopets, and My Little Pony” (Addady 3). These websites are all commonly used among children, and all of them are collecting data about children. These companies have to pay a price of course, around $835,000, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other companies out there, tracking millions of children.
An ignorant person may ask, what’s at stake? Children have nothing to hide anyways. But there is much at stake. Would you want your children to be under the scrutiny of companies and the government? Would you want them to unknowingly sell information to malicious companies that will store data, data about young children that could affect the child’s future? The tracking of children is a huge issue, and can be fixed with more enforcement and responsibility. Enforcement of the COPPA would allow for more companies to be caught and have their ways changed. Companies themselves have to take responsibility though. The user’s best interest should always be in the company’s mind, and that means owning responsibility for third party trackers. Educating your child about internet safety can reduce the risk of tracking. With more enforcement and responsibility, parents can be more at ease whenever their child reaches for the iPad.
Which fandom do you belong to? If at all, is there a particular show you are a fan of at heart? You might be a die heart about a particular actor, musician, tv show, or movie, yet has it ever come to your mind that your activity and allegiance to a certain fandom may actually be a risk for your online and personal security? Do be careful about what you reveal online, because many artists, should they be related to fandoms or not, are subject to death threats and blackmailing, similarly known as cybercrime, and cyberbullying. Be aware, anything you give away on internet is for all to see.
ReplyDeleteYou might not be aware, but celebrity-following may potentially be dangerous and create a breach in the wall defending your privacy, as of McAfee's annual articles revealing there was a near one in five chance of landing on threatening sites following the search of a celebrity. With hundreds of personalities making themselves known all over the internet, and social media, cybercriminals will generate links whenever one of these people are "called" on a search engine. These links, once activated, will release a virus into your computer. Why would they do this? For your private data of course. Your data may be and will be used against your will. This may also lead to leaks and spoilers, orchestrated by these cybercriminals, which we know are (maybe) the nightmares of many fandoms.
Fandoms grow so immense and become so diverse that anyone can be part of one, and by anyone, I mean anyone. Do you really know who hides behind the username "CaptainKirk266", or "DumbleSnape3"? Neither do I. Highest chances are that these people are none other than happy fans. Yet that smaller percentage may be people who do not share your same cup of tea. These are people who, upon simple communications with you, may access your personal information, and share it online. This kind of cyber criminality has happened, and is sure to happen again. Therefore you may think you have nothing to hide, you are terribly wrong.
ReplyDeleteAll your work posted on websites could be taken, and revealed publicly. These may be pictures, artwork, and other various files that would probably be sold, mocked online, or claimed by others. How do you think the despised "haters" are fueled? Knowing how companies and organizations use your private data in order to target ads, this also relates to McAfee's article showing that whatever a fan does, his/her actions will be followed and his data used against him/her in order to target any ads, viruses, and other various forms of annoyances at that particular fan. Therefore when you want to look up a DJ, or your favorite pony, check twice, and make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIs Tracking our Children Online really Necessary?
ReplyDeleteWith profiles containing personal information on our children being leaked by some of the largest names on the internet, it has gotten people to start wondering why are these profiles are being created in the first place.
The internet and all of it’s benefits are free to anyone who wants to use them, but what we give them in exchange is a look into our life through our online activity. Some might say it is a fair tradeoff since it is common knowledge that anything you do online can be traced, tracked, and hacked. But do you think our children are aware of that? Children are not thinking of the dangers they could be putting themselves, or their families, in by entering personal information when on the internet, they are usually not even aware that there is any danger. So, if they are not able to protect themselves then who IS protecting them?
Online tracking hasn’t been around for that long, it is relatively new, and therefore the laws and regulations dictating what tracking companies can and cannot do sometimes still have some grey areas
Recently a law was passed making it illegal to track the online activity of anyone under the age of thirteen without parental consent (Collins 1). Though it is a good sign that the government is forming new laws to keep up with the world we live in today, there are still many ways to bend this law without breaking it. Companies are even tracking our kids through the technology used in our schools, and their information is being leaked (Kamenetz 2). Despite the attempts of the government to control these tracking companie, they continue to follow online activities of even our kids, giving criminals thousands of identities to steal and ruin. So when does the government plan to actually put a stop to tracking our children, after their information is used for something even worse than identity theft?
Besides, what do our children have that is so important that tracking and ad companies have to track them. Our children use OUR credit cards to purchase items, so why target kids when it’s their parents make the final decision?
Our children should not have to take an online safety class when they are just learning how to read and write, they should be able to have a safe virtual environment when they go to pbs.org to play their favorite game. We should not have to monitor our children whenever they go online just to be sure that their personal information is kept safe.
A recent poll revealed that only about 50% of Americans feel that all this online tracking is an intrusion, but ask the parents of America if it’s an intrusion on their child’s privacy I can guarantee that the percentage will be in the high nineties (Roose 1). We want to protect our children from anything that could harm them, and the real world is dangerous enough, why can’t our children be safe in at least the virtual one?
Even one tweet can change your chances of success. Anything you put online can and likely will impact your chances of getting into college or even getting a job. Might as well make the best of it. As we all hopefully know by now, any and all information we put online, and some we don’t, can be accessed by others. Although it can seem scary to have strangers knowing things about you, if you educate yourself you can use it to your advantage.
ReplyDeleteAs an example, for students who are looking to get into college, social media profiles can help or destroy their chances of acceptance. According to Natasha Singer, writing for the New York Times, at least 30% of colleges who answered a survey in 2013 visited their applicants on Facebook. That number doesn’t include social media platforms more popular among young adults, and has probably only increased in the past three years. Singer also wrote that many high schoolers plan on editing their social media posts and profiles as they get ready to apply to college, a strategy that coulnd change whether or not they are accepted into one of the first choice colleges. Colleges often employ someone who helps check the online profiles of prospective students, and if that person finds something unpleasant, like pictures of drug use, that student’s application is most likely going right in the trash. On the other hand, if an employee of the college is looking through a student’s Instagram feed and only finds pictures of activities done during school, volunteer projects, sports teams, or etc., that student might get a boost in the application process. Colleges want students that will contribute in positive ways to the school, so if you present yourself well on social media, your chances will be far better.
Some people might argue that prospective college attendees should avoid social media altogether, and avoid the risks of it impacting acceptance. Simply put, that’s not a great idea. While going on social media is a personal choice, don’t avoid it simply because it could hurt your college chances and forgo the benefits of giving colleges a little better of a view of who you are as a person. If a college sees on, line a vibrant person who contributes to their community, is involved, is good-natured, and responsible, they will be far more inclined to bring that person to their school rather than someone who can barely be found online. Colleges will most likely not be hiring hackers to look through a student’s search history and judge them from that, they want to see how they present themselves publicly.
Yes, this is very different from how it was fifteen, even ten years ago. It may seem strange to some people, especially parents helping their student through the college application process, but it can be used to your advantage.
Is Tracking our Children Online really Necessary?
ReplyDeleteWith profiles containing personal information on our children being leaked by some of the largest names on the internet, it has gotten people to start wondering why are these profiles are being created in the first place.
The internet and all of it’s benefits are free to anyone who wants to use them, but what we give them in exchange is a look into our life through our online activity. Some might say it is a fair tradeoff since it is common knowledge that anything you do online can be traced, tracked, and hacked. But do you think our children are aware of that? Children are not thinking of the dangers they could be putting themselves, or their families, in by entering personal information when on the internet, they are usually not even aware that there is any danger. So, if they are not able to protect themselves then who IS protecting them?
Online tracking hasn’t been around for that long, it is relatively new, and therefore the laws and regulations dictating what tracking companies can and cannot do sometimes still have some grey areas
Recently a law was passed making it illegal to track the online activity of anyone under the age of thirteen without parental consent (Collins 1). Though it is a good sign that the government is forming new laws to keep up with the world we live in today, there are still many ways to bend this law without breaking it. Companies are even tracking our kids through the technology used in our schools, and their information is being leaked (Kamenetz 2). Despite the attempts of the government to control these tracking companie, they continue to follow online activities of even our kids, giving criminals thousands of identities to steal and ruin. So when does the government plan to actually put a stop to tracking our children, after their information is used for something even worse than identity theft?
Besides, what do our children have that is so important that tracking and ad companies have to track them. Our children use OUR credit cards to purchase items, so why target kids when it’s their parents make the final decision?
Our children should not have to take an online safety class when they are just learning how to read and write, they should be able to have a safe virtual environment when they go to pbs.org to play their favorite game. We should not have to monitor our children whenever they go online just to be sure that their personal information is kept safe.
A recent poll revealed that only about 50% of Americans feel that all this online tracking is an intrusion, but ask the parents of America if it’s an intrusion on their child’s privacy I can guarantee that the percentage will be in the high nineties (Roose 1). We want to protect our children from anything that could harm them, and the real world is dangerous enough, why can’t our children be safe in at least the virtual one?
Audience: Parents
ReplyDeleteAs a parent, you might think that your child is protected from the prying eyes of trackers, but you are wrong. One may think that the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is protecting their child, but they are wrong. Your child is being tracked right now, without your knowledge, and this is unacceptable. Organizations and tracking companies can’t continue to invade privacy and track the behavior of children.
Most parents spend the majority of their time worrying about their children, and it’s time for them to worry about their children’s safety. With children everywhere now having access to the internet, the issue of online privacy has escalated. Whether kids go on “kid-friendly” websites, or simply surf the internet, third party trackers are tracking their every step. Trackers use cookies, flash cookies, and beacons. The article “The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets” explains that “beacons, also known as “Web bugs” and “pixels,” are small pieces of software that run on a Web page. They can track what a user is doing on the page, including what is being typed or where the mouse is moving.” (Angwin 55). This shows just how much a company can find out about our children, and it’s frightening. What if a child was simply searching up the meaning of a word from Dictionary.com? 223 tracking files would end up being downloaded onto the computer, capable of tracking their every move (Angwin 19). No parent would want companies to know exactly what their child was doing.
A parent may ask, if there’s already a Children’s Privacy Act, why is online privacy still such a big deal? According to the NPR Staff, a “hacker stole personal information and photos of more than six million children after breaking into the computer records of a educational toy company, VTech” (NPR Staff 2). That’s six million children that have been deprived of their right to privacy. That’s six million children whose information shouldn’t have been on a database in the first place. And that’s a countless number of parents that have been deceived into thinking that their children wouldn’t be the victims of tracking. In fact, Google has even been guilty of tracking children outside of their education services.
Four other major toy companies were found to be violating the COPPA as well: Hasbro, Mattel, Jumpstart games, and Viacom. According to Fortune, “third-party vendors used cookies and IP addresses to track kids under 13-years-old, giving them access to some of their personal information without first receiving their parents’ approval. Sites that improperly tracked children’s online activity included Nickelodeon, American Girl, Neopets, and My Little Pony” (Addady 3). These websites are all commonly used among children, and all of them are collecting data about children. These companies have to pay a price of course, around $835,000, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other companies out there, tracking millions of children.
An ignorant person may ask, what’s at stake? Children have nothing to hide anyways. But there is much at stake. Would you want your children to be under the scrutiny of companies and the government? Would you want them to unknowingly sell information to malicious companies that will store data, data about young children that could affect the child’s future? The tracking of children is a huge issue, and can be fixed with more enforcement and responsibility. Enforcement of the COPPA would allow for more companies to be caught and have their ways changed. Companies themselves have to take responsibility though. The user’s best interest should always be in the company’s mind, and that means owning responsibility for third party trackers. Educating your child about internet safety can reduce the risk of tracking. With more enforcement and responsibility, parents can be more at ease whenever their child reaches for the iPad.
Has your kid ever wanted to sign up for a game online? Did you let them use their name and information? If so, they are probably being tracked. What does this mean? It means they are more susceptible to identity theft. This also means that they are a big target for hackers because they don’t know what's going to happen when they give out their info, nor will they know if their identity is being stolen or if it has been sold for a few pennies on the black market. Just a couple years back, a toy company was hacked and information from 6 million kids was released. How would you feel if that was your child?
ReplyDeleteWhat about your teenager? Do you let use social media? If so, they have probably given out enough personal information that any decent hacker can get ahold of and use. What about the third party website they may have used? This means they're also being tracked, these third party websites have most likely installed a tracker, and this means their risk of identity theft is raising. These trackers follow them everywhere and see everything they do, then stores this collected the data and sells it to advertising companies.
Is it really fair to collect data from minors? There are already a lot of cases of info being leaked, and by collecting data on kids, we raise the chance of it happening even more often to a younger generation. But if we decrease the amount of info collected on kids, we can also decrease the amount of problems of info being released. Because by collecting data on kids and minors it raises the chance of hacking, unwanted releasing of personal information, and identity theft and a ruined reputation before they're even able to obtain a reputation.
One tweet could change your chances of success. Anything you put online can impact your chances of getting into college or even getting a job. Might as well make the best of it. As we all hopefully know by now, any and all information we put online, and some we don’t, can be accessed by others. Although it can seem scary to have strangers knowing things about you, if you educate yourself you can use it to your advantage.
ReplyDeleteAs an example, for students who are looking to get into college, social media profiles can help or destroy their chances of acceptance. According to Natasha Singer, writing for the New York Times, at least 30% of colleges who answered a survey in 2013 visited their applicants on Facebook. That number doesn’t include social media platforms more popular among young adults, and has probably only increased in the past three years. Singer also wrote that many high schoolers plan on editing their social media posts and profiles as they get ready to apply to college, a strategy that could change whether or not they are accepted into one of the first choice colleges. Colleges often employ someone who helps check the online profiles of prospective students, and if that person finds something unpleasant, like pictures of drug use, that student’s application is most likely going right in the trash. On the other hand, if an employee of the college is looking through a student’s Instagram feed and only finds pictures of activities done during school, volunteer projects, sports teams, or etc., that student might get a boost in the application process. Colleges want students that will contribute in positive ways to the school, so if you present yourself well on social media, your chances will be far better.
Some people might argue that prospective college attendees should avoid social media altogether, and avoid the risks of it impacting acceptance. Simply put, that’s not a great idea. While going on social media is a personal choice, don’t avoid it simply because it could hurt your college chances and forgo the benefits of giving colleges a little better of a view of who you are as a person. If a college sees on, line a vibrant person who contributes to their community, is involved, is good-natured, and responsible, they will be far more inclined to bring that person to their school rather than someone who can barely be found online. Colleges will most likely not be hiring hackers to look through a student’s search history and judge them from that, they want to see how they present themselves publicly.
Yes, this is very different from how it was fifteen, even ten years ago. It may seem strange to some people, especially parents helping their student through the college application process, but it can be used to your advantage.
Half of all the adults in U.S. have their faces in facial recognition databases, and you could be one of them. Police and other law enforcement personnel all over America have used social media and unregulated databases of mugshots (disproportionately people of colour) and drivers’ licenses for identifying criminals, yet a good proportion of those in them have never committed a crime (Levin).
ReplyDeleteLast week the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) disclosed that the social media sites Facebook and Twitter had given Geofeedia, a social media monitoring company, special access to user’s data. This data was allegedly used to help police track protesters using facial recognition. A similar event occurred last year during the black lives matter protests in Baltimore — Geofeedia again allegedly aided police in the tracking of protesters using social media and facial recognition (Levin). This is illegal monitoring that infringes upon the first amendment, the right to free speech, and criminalizes lawful citizens exercising their rights.
The use of facial recognition is extremely racially biased. The disproportionate number of African American mugshots reflect the biased policing practices that are the cause for the black lives matter movement (Levin). So if this software is flawed but still extensively used by the people who are supposed to protect us, it must give accurate results, right? Wrong, in fact, facial recognition algorithms have been proven to be between five and ten percent less effective for black people than white people (Kofman). In addition one out of seven searches produces results of 50 potential people that are all innocent. The consequences of these inaccurate results can cause a lot of damage for people who have never even committed a crime (Levin).
This facial recognition is very difficult to avoid, surveillance cameras can use “real time facial recognition” to identify pedestrians in public places (Kofman).To live normally yet avoid facial recognition is difficult unless you take extreme lengths like wearing a hat with infrared LEDs in public places to hide your face from surveillance cameras (Roose 5).
The facial recognition technology is supposed to help track criminals but instead is
a flawed system that infringes upon lawful citizens’ rights, and can have negative consequences for innocent people. Law enforcement should not be able to use this data without proper oversight because it is racially biased in its results and harms African Americans, and therefore harms America as a whole.
I don't want to post the whole thing again, so here's the first paragraph.
ReplyDeleteThere’s something inherently unsettling about the idea of someone watching you without your knowledge, and yet the Internet is backlit with millions of strangers watching each other. We scroll through social media, we look up our favorite YouTubers, we listen to other people's’ playlists and read their works and gawk at what they’re wearing, what they look like, and what they say. We’re supersaturated in this culture we’ve created for ourselves that feeds off of the need to validate yourselves by using other people as a standard.
How would you feel if a complete stranger knew almost everything about you? Pretty creepy, not the halloween kind of creepy, but the full on stalking kind of creepy, right? Now what if you had access to information, that if someone else got privy to, you would instantly lose your job, or potentially be thrown in jail? This is the kind of stress doctors have to go through every day. Doctors can be fired for violating HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), an act passed by congress which is capable of imprisoning doctors and other health officials for sharing a patient’s health or personal data without consent.
ReplyDeleteEvery so often, doctors need to enter their patient’s health info into the hospital, or clinic’s database for future reference, which they can do with, or without internet, but with trackers who are “seeking to track users offline, as well [as online], by collecting data about people's ... habits” (Angwin 1), this info could easily be collected without one’s knowledge.
Many patients who are in rehab, have health monitors (ie: portable blood monitors, and IV’s, etc.) that need to connect to the internet to transmit info to doctors. However, “by spying on you, companies can learn about your personal finances, religious beliefs, political affiliation, race, ethnic background, even health problems” (Weisbaum 1). That last one is a problem. With growing technologies such a beacons (a highly sophisticated tracking software), such info could easily be collected, and sold to your insurance company. Think about it, your insurance company can get an hourly update on your health! Every hour, you can watch your premium go up, and your coverage go down, little by little.
One might argue saying, “You can’t fault the doctor for something they have no control over!”, but according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, “Using electronic technology, ... does not mean a health care provider is a covered entity”. This means the consequences a doctor must face for trackers uncovering info, entirely depends upon whether or not the judge, or their boss is in a good mood that day. Unfortunately, that HIPAA rule can’t be changed, since doctors have, in the past, intentionally leaked patient info, so the rule must stay rigid.
As you can see, with tracking software becoming increasingly sophisticated, more health care providers are at risk of losing their job, or worse, being imprisoned, for no fault of their own. The very same people that work to keep us healthy, and save lives, at risk! What would we do without them? We would succumb to disease, and death. We would live for about 25 short, miserable years. Horrible, isn’t it? All because of an inflexible law, and some companies out there, just to stalk on you.
Nicole Overton Block 10
ReplyDeleteWhy Parents Should Be Concerned With How Their Children Are Tracked and How Data Is Collected From Them When Online at School and at Home
Picture this- your child or teenager is surfing the internet on their school issued device, seemingly safe from tracking and personal data collection from others.
Except they’re not.
Parents do not know that their students are being tracked and having their personal data taken from them whenever they use the internet, at home and even at school, whenever they are using a school issued device or account. Privacy advocates say that student data collection in school is “out of control” (Armerding 1) and that there is “...data collected by schools that they [students] and their parents do not control, or even know about” (Armerding 3).
Target Audience: U.S. Citizens concerned with terrorist attacks
ReplyDeleteImagine a terrorist attack devastates the United States, the whole country hears about it, lives are lost, complete tragedy. Days later, you learn from a news outlet that the government had the technology that could have prevented it, but didn’t use it because the people refuted it. Lives wouldn’t have been lost, no tragedy. What would you have wanted from the government then?
This is the same kind of dilemma the entire country is facing. Whether we should support the use of the PRISM program and deciding if the government’s use of it is for better or for worse. What is the PRISM program? It is a program monitored by the NSA and allows us to watch foreign terrorists through the internet. This program allows us to look through phone records to see who is calling who, and when they’re making those calls. Basically, “wireless wiretapping” is what it is. It allows the government to take a look into the activity of suspected and potential terrorists and people who are connected to them.
Some people may argue that the PRISM is a violation of privacy, saying that the government doesn’t just use it on foreign threats and enemies, but also people on home soil, with no reason to suspect them of anything. People also argue that the action itself is illegal and unconstitutional and that doing this is putting us is putting us in more danger, because of the potential hacking that could be done to the program.
In my opinion, the PRISM program benefits us in more ways than one. There is really no other way for us to go about getting this information as easily as this anymore, especially since interrogation was put to a stop, and going undercover has become so much more dangerous. Not only that, but there is proof that shows the only way the government would be looking at someone on home soil, is if they had ties to potential or suspected terrorists. So, as long as your record is clean, the government won’t look into you. The government doing this is completely legal. In fact, the information is literally given over to the government by the people, in the sense that phone companies need the information of who and when you called, in order to complete the call. The law says, that since there is no real expectation of privacy given by using a cell phone, therefore the fourth amendment does not protect you, the government has the right. Lastly, the only new danger this program put us in, is that we don’t have the advantage anymore. Now that this information is leaked, terrorists know how and when we are tracking them.
So, if the government could have stopped or prevented a terrorist attack, by being made aware of the terrorist before he had even done anything, by tracking his connections and his actions through his calls, wouldn’t you rather save the countless lives at risk than your belief of keeping your privacy, which is not even in danger of being lost?
nternet Surveillance
ReplyDeleteHow would it make you feel to know that someone somewhere just saw your child eat that sandwich while watching their nightly episode of scooby doo? Yes, and drink that entire glass of chocolate milk. Contrary to popular belief everything you do in the privacy of your own home is not so private anymore. Due to recent discoveries, everything you do on the internet or even near your computer can be accessed and used to assemble a profile containing information about where you live, your age, gender, most frequently visited websites, relationship status, etc. The information gathered about you can then be sold to advertising companies looking to make a quick buck by personalizing ads on your computer. They usually pop up on your computer screen on shopping websites, video streaming sites, etc.
As of this year, a controversial addition has been made to the magical Disney World experience all over the country. Disney World has recently implemented a new peculiar luxury to their various locations throughout the U.S. It is called the “MyMagic+” wristband and it is a very convenient and efficient way for customers to plan their trips more efficiently, enter rooms, and pay for luxuries. The catch is that it tracks their every move. There are sensors all around the whole park that can detect where each wristband is at all times. It knows what stores they visit, what rides they go on and how/if they planned their trips using their MyMagic+ wristbands.
Over the years, the collection of student data has gotten far more advanced. Now, companies like Gaggle exist; what is Gaggle you ask? Gaggle is a human monitoring service for school that “discovers millions of inappropriate words and images in student email, text messages, discussion boards, email attachments and computer files, leading to thousands of warnings sent to school district administrators and law enforcement every year” (Armerding 2). Companies like this have access to what the students may have viewed as private, access which constitutes a serious invasion of their privacy. According to Khaliah Barnes, the director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s student privacy project, “data gathering includes health, fitness and sleeping habits, sexual activity, prescription drug use, alcohol use and disciplinary matters. Students attitudes, sociability and even ‘enthusiasm’ are quantified, analyzed, recorded and dropped into giant data systems” ( Armerding 1). Would you want this type of personal information about your child being seen by their school? Probably not, because when the school and these companies have this information about your child, they can share it. Even if the data stays with the school, Rebecca Herold, CEO of The Privacy Professor, says that “FERPA covers educational records and PII, it “generally does not include the privacy-invasive data that is used for monitoring/tracking students,”...without audits and active regulatory oversight of school systems, it is likely that a large portion of schools do not follow the requirements”
ReplyDeleteTest post
ReplyDeleteOf course, advocates for collecting students’ online data will say that “gathering individual information on students can lead to “personalized” and “adaptive” learning platforms” (Armerding 1) and that “they [Google] have signed a voluntary but binding pledge called the Student Privacy Pledge, along with 200 other companies. And the pledge says that Google will seek parental authorization before collecting data that isn’t being used explicitly for educational purposes” (NPR Staff 2). However, the EFF, or the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that there is a “back door” for Google collecting students’ private data. When a student is logged on to their school account and uses Google applications like YouTube or Maps, Google is collecting that information and “when students use Chrome on their school-issued computers, they’re browsing the web and Google potentially has access to their entire browsing history…” (NPR Staff 2). In addition to this, Google can also use search history and collected data to advertise to your child or use it for non-educational purposes.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion- schools should not let companies like Google and Gaggle, who are often invasive when it comes to personal information, obtain and share student data that is personal or sensitive. Schools should implement security measures to ensure that students cannot have their data tracked or be traced and allow parents to monitor and remove information about their child if the want to. After all, according to the Pew Research Center, a conducted survey for adults showed that “some 74% say it is “very important” to them that they be in control of who can get information about them, and 65% say it is “very important” to them to control what information is collected about them.” (Rainie 4); shouldn’t we extend this concern to students?
ReplyDeleteThe underlying purpose of the Mymagic+ wristbands is to give the stingy workers the ability to personalize ads based on your location throughout the park. This can be deeply concerning to parents with kids who visit the park, considering the fact that all the data collected by the wristbands is stored away in various computers in the park’s headquarters and sold to advertising companies. This is really dangerous not only because the advertising companies can use your information to make money off of you by making ads connect to you on a more personal level, but also because there is a possibility that the information could simply fall into the hands of someone who wants to nab your kid. If someone with bad intentions knows exactly where your kid is at all times in the park, it makes it very easy for them to find opportunities to abduct your kid from right under your nose. The MyMagic+ wristbands pose a strong threat to any kid in any Disney World park. Not only do these kinds of threats exist in places like theme parks, but also in our own homes.
ReplyDeleteThe latest edition to the barbie doll family is a modern day Chatty Cathy named Hello Barbie. Hello Barbie isn't just any talking doll, she also has the ability to empathize and listen. Inside Barbie’s new and improved stylish necklace is a microphone and a speaker, enabling two way conversations and the ability to tell stories and play games as well as the ability to listen to and understand what whoever is speaking to it is saying. This might sound like the next best stocking stuffer for your kid this Christmas, but owning this product certainly has its risks that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Keywords used in the child's response to the doll are compiled together and stored into a “trend bucket” showing Mattel and Toy Talk what's popular among the youth. This data helps them improve their product for the next release and allows them to give Hello Barbie a wider range of responses. Last November, hackers rummaged through the “trend bucket” at Mattel and stole information about the kids’ genders, ages and locations as well as thousands of pictures and conversations between the customers and Hello Barbie.
Written by: Ada Silverberg
ReplyDeleteWhat would you think if you found out that your child was being watched? When you allow your kids to play on electronics or search things up online, they are being stalked. Many companies claim to protect our data, and to have our best interest in mind, but in reality they fail to protect our privacy. Leaving us, and our children, vulnerable, putting us at risk and in harm’s way. This proves to us that privacy is a scarcity and it must be protected at all costs.
Children, before anyone else, must be safe and protected. Education and awareness about the dangers of others getting ahold of our personal information is the first step to solving this problem. Children and Parents should be aware of the negatives of social media sites, such as Facebook. In october 2010, Facebook admitted that its top 10 most popular applications shared user’s data. User’s names and fried’s names were shared, affecting tens of millions of Facebook users, even those with heavy privacy settings on. Certain web sites also pose a threat to our children, targeting them for subscriptions and sales, and giving their information out to advertisers. Although the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) sets laws that must be followed, many companies violate said rules. In May 2011, Disney’s Playdom, Inc. had to pay the largest COPPA fine ever. The FTC fined them $3 million for collecting and sharing hundreds of thousands of children’s personal information without parental consent. Collecting kids’ ages, email addresses, full names and locations and then sharing them, companies like Disney pose a threat to children everywhere. (Network World)
The real question is this, what is being done about personal data being shared and given out? In an interview with Education World, “FBI Special Agent Peter A. Gulotta Jr. says not enough is being done, ‘The Internet can be a valuable educational tool, and the FBI doesn’t try to discourage its use. We do, however, want parents and teachers to be aware of the risks and take steps to minimize them.’” (Education World) Heavier fines and stricter rules should be enforced to protect our children and our privacy. Such plans like the ‘Do Not Track’ plan would help to protect us. The Do Not Track plan prevents companies from spying on you, aloowing you to opt-out from being tracked. “‘Most people have no idea this is going on,’ says Sharon Goott Nissim with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. ‘Your online profile is being sold on the web. It’s kind of crazy and it’s not harmless.’” (Who’s Watching You Online?)
Although some tracking from companies, such as tracking and providing you with advertisements that relate to what you search, may sometimes be convenient, is it worth the safety of our children? Privacy is a gigantic issue, frequently discussed. How much is too much? How much is too little? The key is finding a balance, but let me ask you this, should we not be allowed enough privacy to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Nowadays it seems like we are not able to, due to large companies. Privacy, and our safety, are one of the most important issues today and must be protected above all else.
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