Privacy - Can it Ever be Achieved Again?

 Blog #7

Privacy - Can it Ever be Achieved Again?

Permanency 

The internet. We are always told that anything we ever out on the internet is there forever, even after it is
deleted, this is true. In today's digital world, even if we elect to not create a digital footprint for ourselves (such as having social media accounts or posting information about ourselves on the Internet through any capacity) our digital footprint WILL still exist. Due to Facial Recognition software, simply walking down the street creates a digital footprint for ourselves. Images are not our only digital footprint, our credit scores, our Wikipedia searches, Yelp, among many other websites and digital holdings also make up our footprint. We are tracked almost entirely on all action we take online, these actions can be sold and studied to and by different organizations. Without giving up use of the internet, avoiding every public camera (effectively becoming a hermit), and only using cash (not having a bank account or credit card at all), we will always be monitored via digital footprints. 

The softwares being used in our U.S. cities are also wildly advanced in their ability to track us, our movements, and our locations, also what we do and don't do based upon those travels. These are considered to be NSA level technologies, however, they are now used in local communities. A major form of this is automatic license plate readers, seemingly used to ensure the ability of tracking cars of those that are believed to have done a wrongdoing, such as someone with a warrant out for their arrest, however, we increasingly see these used to track people that are not wanted. Anyone can get placed on a watchlist based on their habits and places they frequent, regardless of if they actually express suspicious behaviors. 

By simply carrying our cell phones with us, we are being tracked. The constant pinging of cell phone
towers means that when we have our cell phones on us, our movements around a city are tracked. Our whereabouts can always be looked back upon. While this can be helpful in locating criminals, there is not reason police should be able to continuously do this for people they do not like the habits of. You can have habits that a certain segment of the population does not approve of, that is the freedom granted to the American people, with that freedom you should not fear your every movement is being constantly monitored without a reasonable explanation behind why you are being monitored.

Tower pinging is not the only way the government engages in these behaviors. Phone companies also allow for wire tapping. While this was once a very rudimentary technology where individual wires were tapped and monitored by a person sitting and listening to their phone line manually, there are now technologies that allow for the recording of any phone call ever made, no human needed. This means that we must go about our days assuming that every phone call we ever take, is being recorded and could be listened back to at any point. While you may not think it is a big deal because you're a good person and aren't up to any illegal activities, it is still unsettling to know that every phone conversation you have ever had may be sitting scattered across various databases. It's also does not have to be your government, but could be another government, or even a random hacker from anywhere in the world. 

Avoidance

So now you may think, what I can't even own a cell phone? Well, there are ways around the tracking and
surveillance the government uses on us. Between wire tapping and tower pinging this may not seem possible, but it is. in the early 2010s, Silicon Valley companies did invest a significant amount into building encryption technologies into their products. These systems are not foolproof, however, they do make it more difficult for hackers to be able to monitor individuals.

This means that encryption must be a main priority of these types of companies. Without encryption tools active on our technologies that we use daily, we are vulnerable to make type of surveillance attack, whether it be from government, an independent hacker, or any other monitoring agency. An encryption tool that is easily used and readily available in a variety of forms is a VPN. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network, whatever technology it is active on, it creates a connection to a remote server, it could show your online movements as being in Europe while you sit in your bed in North Carolina. It encrypts all of your personal data, blocks your IP address, and allows for the sidestepping of firewalls, creating a more secure online environment. 

Changes

Legislation can be brought forward to force the police to rid of the data on innocent people that are not
suspects of any crime. This would force police to have true and justifiable reason to maintain data storage on any person whom they currently do this. This means, if they are unable to prove that a person is actually suspected of wrongdoing, their data cannot be stored permanently and continuously reviewed by police. While we will still always have a large digital footprint, this does give the American people a bit more of their freedom back, a bit less of overwhelming overwatch of people in their daily lives, performing their daily habits. 

A simple change in our browsing habits can also provide slightly more protection on the tracking of our internet footprints. Cookies. We have all seen the pop-up "Allow All Cookies." Well, what is a cookie is not a delicious desert? Cookies are data pieces that are sent from your technology to the web server when you access a website. We are told cookies customize your browsing experience to improve it, however, it is truly just a way for various companies to monitor our online actions and create a database on each person based on their preferences and habits. Denying cookies can help to give a bit more data protection to our digital footprint.