The Most Vexing Issue of The Digital Age: Privacy

Ted Talk Videos

Juan Enriquez spoke on big data, tattoos, immortality, and the Greeks in his talk on privacy issues. Tattoos convey without speaking; intimate, attractive, mistake, intriguing, and allegiance are a few of them. Metaphoric electronic tattoos can convey without speaking too. Dare I say, with facial recognition in mobile phones progressing to an almost scary point, our devices know us on a more intimate level than our loved ones. My iPhone has this feature where it analyzes the faces in my photos and uses their face as a template to create albums filled with photos of just them...weird. Today, people talk about having their fifteen minutes of fame, but what if in the future you could only be anonymous for fifteen minutes. These electronic tattoos will live far past our physical existence allowing the human race to achieve virtual immortality. He applies Orpheus (charming, partier Greek god) as one who charmed their way into the underworld to release his beauty on the condition that he would not look at her until they were out of the darkness of dating today. He says it's smart to use technology and give your next date a Google search or go into the digital past of those you love, but warns you to not go too far. Narcissus is used to remind us to not fall in love with our own reflection.  

Dating sites have access to all of your (if you choose to use dating sites) photos, chats, location, preferences in a partner, and content you post (making it irrevocable and its existence perpetual) to distribute and sell you information. All your dating history can be used for any purpose, at any time. The next few speakers address privacy issues as a matter you mustn't take lightly. As I was doing more research on privacy leaks, I made the connection between companies selling user information to third-party sources and an episode from one of my favorite shows, Criminal Minds. There's this criminal minds episode I watched where the killer picked out his victims and stalked them based on the information a fertility clinic sold to his place of work, a telemarketing company. He knew the women's likes, wants in a man, favorite things, location, appearance, and more private details. This is a Hollywood example showing how dangerous selling third-party information can be. If it's legal for a place as intimate and vulnerable as a fertility clinic to sell information to third-party users, it makes me wonder where all of my personal information goes on a daily basis in the bidding war over my digital footprint and trail of my digital cookie crumbs.  

Catherine Crump exposed the small detail the police track about you-which could be the most surprising of them all. Advanced weaponry is making its way to local small police department regions like surveillance systems. Police departments are tagging people's license plates in their system to track them, and that means you too. They write it off as being crucial to watch private citizens interact to maintain public safety, but that sounds like not only a major invasion of privacy, but dangerous as well. With this, there's no more wondering what happens behind closed doors for any of us. Let's say someone hacks into their system, finds my license plate, and is now able to use the thousands of cameras set up where I live to track me down (gross). I even get concerned with using Waze that someone will hack into the platform and direct me elsewhere; it's super easy to do and since I'm using Waze, it proves I'm already shaky on where I'm going so it would be easy to pull off (creepy). My grievance with automatic license plate readers doesn't deal with their ability to be converted to cross-check a hot list of people wanted for wrongdoing, because that's obviously one of the few positives of this whole thing. It's more so that they have this mass data collection where Americans have gone. What do I mean by "where they've gone." I mean they know the date, time, location, where you're going, where you went, who you're going with and even when you leave your house. So, you may be asking, Sophia-what's the actual issue? Well, the federal government is collecting these individual pools of data to show where all Americans are at all times; it's almost like we're trying to be the surveillance state, also known as China. The government abuses their power in many aspects, but in this one specifically, they profile Muslims who frequent mosques as potential terrorists and use its fancy surveillance system to keep track of them. May I remind you that they are now targeting a location, group of people, culture, religion, and race of people; it's absolutely sickening. Crump calls on cell phone towers as another way for the government to invade your privacy as they use a technique to ping your phone to tell where you are based on the tower you're pulling service off of...creepy. In this case, it's not about seeing to believe, because they don't want you to see it. No, they rather fool you into thinking it's not there, it's just easier that way. 

Darieth Chisolm shares her experience with the dark side of technology in her story of how revenge porn turned her life, and thousands of others, upside down. One of the things cyberbullying and digital domestic violence have in porn is they both stem from a relationship gone bad. Chisolm said it best when phrasing how cases of revenge porn become so detrimental; its power is derived from jealous ex-partners who can't handle the rejection by the other partner, so they use the weapons of cellphones and laptops and their ammunition is photos texts, and videos. In Chisolm's case, the photos were taken of her while she was asleep to make her seem loose and sleazy. Victims suffer silently across the world. Forced into isolation by the rejection and shame put on by society to face pain, depression, and humiliation on their own. We all let this happen, one like at a time. By feeding into the algorithms and using social media at a rate that can be defined in the prospective restraints of addiction, we give it the power to make or destroy us. However, there is little legislation to protect these people which points to the reason why most of these cases go unreported. The Enough Act by Kamala Harris and the 40 states (and D.C.) punishing the act with a $500 fine are the two minor laws to prohibit this. Chisolm vowed to accomplish two things: (1) PFA protection from cyberstalking and abuse and (2) for third-party websites to be required to remove the damaging content due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (protects copywriters and consumers). I used this Ted Talk because I found it showcased the shame we've displaced on those who did not deserve it. Technology is an instigator and a tool for digital violence. I encourage us all to promote extrinsic social responsibility by demonstrating intrinsic motivation to restore dignity to ourselves. Once we reach this step of self-actualization, let us release the shame surrounding the victims of revenge porn and help put an end to their silence. 

Finn Mystrad spoke on Cayla, the Toy Doll, who can now be found on display at the German Spy Museum in Berlin. However, Cayla remained on the market for a year after her recall despite sellers knowing how dangerous this toy was. Mystrad brings up a great point in his talk of what's the point of locking a house with a key if anyone can enter through connecting to the internet and your devices. The popular children's toy, Cayla, was able to listen and respond to her owner, but she also was able to be misused and hacked as a surveillance system. Mystrad's talk about his friend Cayla reminded me of a personal experience I had with a toy I was advertised to buy for my baby brother. The toy's original concept was similar to Cayla, only he was named Miko, who was marketed as the ultimate companion for social-emotional learning for the next generation, retailing for $249. Its competitor on the market, is an AI bot named Moxie who is similar but includes a faster response time and cooler color design options and retails for $999!! It essentially was a robot that was small and could follow my brother around-acting like his companion. The toy aims to teach cognitive and social skills to young children, modeling how one should behave in society through acting as a consistently present empath. Miko would also be able to read his emotions, use speech recognition for his voice, and respond to his questions, thoughts, and needs. This past Christmas I was in charge of shopping for my 5-year-old brother who was obsessed with action figures and his tablet. I found Miko as a suggested purchase for me on Amazon when I was shopping for my little brother. After looking at the price, I thought it wasn't too bad and could be a cool gift that he would love to play with. Since I'm at school, I feel guilty about not being as present in his life as I wish to be and thought Miko could provide him that in-person comfort that I couldn't. However, after doing my research on the toy--I was actually scared of it, and of course, I did not purchase the children's surveillance robot from hell. Although just because I did my research doesn't mean that the other hundreds of thousands of parents out there who bought this toy for their child for Christmas did. Companies put unrealistic lengthy terms out so people hit accept, waive their (and their child's) right to privacy, and move on. To solve this, I demand companies are regulated to put out understandable terms to ensure consumers have all of the information before they purchase and agree to the terms of an item. So, you see these issues not only affect me but my friends and family as well. 

Do these privacy issues affect me? Absolutely. I choose to use social media (and that's on me), but I do not consent to the dangers that should not come with having a digital presence or using the internet in general. Due to his career, my father is very careful about any of the members of our family sharing images of him as he curates what we can post based on our location, who is in the photo, and the political climate at the time. He's also taught me the government has its reasons for everything, including how they monitor us 24/7. I believe the government can place stricter regulations on what companies are allowed to do with our information. They can also follow through when their organization violates the 4th Amendment with its illegal searches and seizures which I know (because of Dr. Smith's insight) applies to the digital world too. It's about putting regulations into place, educating people on how to be safe online, and maintaining the very same policies we've created to protect us. My family is one of the tech-savvy types who have the newest invention of something or all of our appliances are also digital (like our Samsung fridge with pretty much a full-screen iPad on it). However, technology banned for our household includes Alexa, Miko, Google Home, or any device whose sole purpose is to listen in to you around the clock so that it can assist you whenever it's called on in our house, ever. This makes me wonder, what does he know that I don't. Probably a lot, but I don't know if I want to know. For my sanity, it would be best not to but for the privacy of my loved ones, of course, I'd like to know so that I can protect and educate them on how to live a life in the modern era, but safely and with some dignity. 

Christopher Soghoian teaches how to avoid surveillance with your phone in your pocket. He explains how the core of the network is wired for surveillance first, acknowledging that someone (hacker, stalker, the government, a foreign government) is always listening. Soghoian brings to our attention that to keep up with the market and secure financial success, Silicon Valley companies intentionally make it hard to tap into seeing your facetime calls and texts so that foreign competitors have a harder time when trying to steal their target markets away. Where tech companies have messed up is democratizing encryption, believing all of that information should be available at their disposal. Our own government officials are even worried (for their agenda, not ours, let's not get it twisted) because most technology companies have turned on surveillance by default. Are they worried because the tech companies may know more about surveillance than they do or that their people's privacy is being invaded? What do you think? Since there's no device that the bad guys use (terrorists, criminals..you get the picture), the government cannot legally, but does, wiretap all devices to maintain national security and safety. The solutions to maintaining your presence and privacy in today's age: use apps and tools that are heavily encrypted communication tools rather than more vulnerable platforms (like Firefox instead of Google as your primary search engine). I'd also encourage you to practice digital hygiene. What does that look like? It centers around masking yourself on the internet; creating fake Gmail accounts, using encrypted apps, and using VPNs.