PRIVACY, ON AND OFFLINE

The other day I viewed a few TED Talks, and they were quite eye opening and informative about your online privacy. 

The first one I viewed was about how your online life can be permanent, just as a tattoo. Your online personality can say so much about you. As technology becomes more prominent in every day life, our online footprint leaves us at so much of a risk, to the point where a single picture of our face can identify our name, socials, criminal records, credit scores, all of that. It's quite scary how easily you can be identified on the internet, I suggest watching this video by Juan Enriquez. It teaches you a great lesson on how to keep yourself safe on the internet by thinking before you post anything that might be revealing to your life.


The next one I viewed was by Catherine Crump, and how the government may know more about you than you thought. She told her viewers how local police departments have automatic license plate scanners that take pictures of a car and its license place, gathering its data such as make and model, location, time, driver, and even who you might be riding with. This information gives police and government surprisingly intrusive data on your personal life, and if you went in to a police department and asked what data they had on your license plate info, they could probably figure out what your daily routine is. That is how intrusive this info can be, and its incredibly immoral. The worst part is, the government is the one who allows this to happen, as they pool all the info into one massive database for safe keeping. 

This final, and most intriguing one to me, was a Ted Talk by Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, and a toy that could talk to your children and answer questions using speech recognition. This toy required internet access, and an app in order to use. You can probably see where I'm going here. The toy was harvesting large amounts of information from unexpecting families having a talk in their own home, and shared to third party companies. On top of that, strangers could connect to this doll without a password, and begin talking to children if they are within 60 feet of the doll via bluetooth. This is a massive security flaw and has already been banned in Germany. This is a great example of how the government can take action on security failures and flaws (yet the government likes to keep info on your license plates in America, how ironic). 




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