Well-Informed 2.0: Privacy 2.0

Discussion:

Privacy is personal to people because it has to do with their own information and they should be able to grant access to certain people without feeling like they’re being invaded by the government. The thing is, they are. After doing some extensive research, I came across the Ted Talk with Catherine Crump talking about the devices used by police such as the license plate reader which cops have on their vehicles that will capture a picture of your license plate and upload it to their station computer. Also how the government can track your movement when traveling by vehicle and can tell the exact places you’ve stopped and where you’re scheduled to go. That doesn’t sound the government has trust in us at all if they feel like they have to babysit our every move.

I also did some research regarding social networking sites and how they make the sites more user friendly to get them to provide more personal information to a wider audience. Amanda Lenhart, Pew Institute for the Internet and American Life (non-profit research group), thinks a tensions lies between people and networking sites saying “…networking sites are based on the idea that people will share information about themselves.” She also adds, “If people stop swapping content then the sites will fade away.” That is exactly where it starts is with people, as long as people keep feeding sites then those sites will expand and want more and more information.

Position:

My perspective on privacy is that I would like to have some for a change. I hate the fact that I am basically being monitored everywhere and everything that I do. I understand that the government needs to be prepared for anything suspicious but I don’t think you have to violate other people’s rights to do so. Listening to Catherine Crump, I’m not all that surprised with the license plate reader because I know that it is a useful tool for cops when they’re looking for a suspect of crime or trying to find evidence. There was one thing that kind of bothered me about that process though, and that was the government was taking pictures of people as well. She shared an example of a man named Mike who police had several pictures of his license plate plus a photo of him and his daughters exiting the car in their own driveway. When I saw that, it immediately put some additional fear in me because now I’m worried about what kind of pictures the government has of me? It’s a scary question that I generally don’t want to know the answer too.

I am skeptical when it comes to social networking sites and all the sheets of private information that need to be filled out and agreements to everything, it is too much. I absolutely HATE when I have to give out my home address (sometimes I want to lie because I have a doubt) unless the company is going to ship me something through the mail. Distributing all that information especially when it’s a site that seems like it’d be unnecessary information for. That why I think you need to be extremely careful when it comes to handing out personal information like that because unfortunately you never know whose hands it’s ultimately going to end up in. So next time you sign up for a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. think about your privacy settings and enabling them because more than the government is watching, there are some sick freaks in this world.