With today’s constant exposure to the internet and technology, there is little to almost no privacy. I always knew that nothing is private on the internet. My parents have always told me, “once you put it out there, it is out there forever.” Growing up I always heard this saying, but I have never heard about the comparison between online life and a tattoo. According to Juan Enriquez’s TedTalk he says that technology can be considered “electronic tattoos”. Hundreds of friends, followers, photographers, cameras, rewriters, reviewers, cookies, apps, phone trackers, GPS, and security systems are watching our every move. From credit scores to liked Instagram posts, the internet is keeping track of that data. Facial recognition has also changed the game of lack of privacy. The recognition has gotten so good that we can take a picture of anyone’s face and the internet will be able to not only detect the person but can also gather information about that individual in a matter of seconds. Personally, I chose not to have face recognition on my phone because I know that I do not want the government to have easy access to more of my private life than they already do. In Catherine Crump’s TedTalk she talks about the details that the police are tracking us on. The police have so much to work with when it comes to gathering data about certain individuals such as their recent whereabouts, who they are, where they live, where they work, and more. There are Automatic License Plate Readers that capture an image of every car’s license plate as they drive by. They are pretty much everywhere, even on police cars. They are able to track where you are going, who you are, what car you drive, and etc. just by the license plate on your car. There is at least someone who always knows where we are or where we have been; talk about the lack of privacy! Even the smartphones that we carry around with us everywhere are capturing our every move. Telephone companies and the networks that carry the calls have provided wiretapping assistance to the government for years according to Christopher Soghoian’s TedTalk about how to avoid surveillance with the smartphones in our pockets. Just when you think you are having a two person conversation, always remember there might be an uninvited person listening from the other side. Access to the internet and technology has also made it easier for people to violate other people’s privacy. This is commonly known as “revenge porn” or like Darieth Chisolm calls it in her TedTalk, “digital domestic violence”. This occurs when people threaten to exploit another person’s private photos on the internet out of hate, violence, or for something in return. Chisolm also shared her own experience of “revenge porn” when her photos were leaked from an ex boyfriend that were taken without her consent. Her photos will now be on the internet for the world to see and she will never live a private life again.
This is one of the many ways the internet promotes our lack of privacy. These issues affect me because it scares me knowing that the internet knows exactly who I am just by a few photos of my face or by just a few Instagram posts I have liked. Not to mention the fear of people taking photos of me without my consent and threatening to post it to the internet to ruin my reputation. I have built up trust issues because I do not know who or what app or smartphone I can truly trust. This not only affects me, but also my friends and family who are associated with me. For example, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat always recommend people I should follow who I already know in person. How could they possibly know that? We are all connected in one big internet circle of life. I believe that the government should provide some form of consent for people to allow them to use them for data. They should also create some sort of website or something to deny and prevent any explicit photo that tries to be posted. This would help stop “revenge porn”. We cannot rely on the government to do everything so it is also up to us to make some choices that will help us keep at least a little bit of our privacy such as making our social media accounts private, not tagging our location or other people, and not putting all of our personal information on any social media or internet platform. The invasion of privacy is a major issue right now that needs to be fixed, no one should be able to access all of our information just from a picture of our faces. The world needs to change and that change can start with us.
https://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_your_online_life_permanent_as_a_tattoo?language=ab
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