Privacy and Technology

March 18, 2023

Technological innovation has improved faster than our privacy protections. The demand for having the finest technology is at an all time high. This revolution has given society opportunities and benefits like never before. Nowadays, people have access to more convenience, communication, knowledge, etc. As a result, our digital footprints can be traced by the government and large corporations like never before. With that being said, the more technology we surround ourselves with, the more we risk many problems in regards to violation of privacy. 

The Effects 

These issues have affected not only myself, but my family and friends. For example, I receive numerous phone calls a day explaining that I owe thousands of dollars to a bank I am not even associated with for my car. I have repeatedly tried blocking these numbers but the calling never stops. The first times this happened I was extremely confused and caught off guard. Had I not called my father, I could have given the intruders valuable, personal information. 

In addition, a lot of my friends have accounts with different social media platforms. One of them which caused a big problem within my friend group was facebook messenger. My friends were receiving messages from who they thought were their friends. Links were sent to them, and because they saw it was from someone they knew, they all opened the links and their facebook accounts were hacked. I feel as if social media hacking is not as common for my older family members because most of them do not have any accounts. However, my mother, father, and grandparents credit cards have all been hacked and an abundance of money was stolen from them. 

Government Action

    In order to protect privacy, the government should start by improving firewall protection and encryption along with requiring a 2 factor identification system. It should also be illegal for companies to sell data elsewhere. For years, companies have tried to get away with this and it has not only violated users' privacy, but led to an abundance of lawsuits. 

Taking Precautions

    There are small things we can participate in each day to help protect ourselves from invasions of privacy. This includes not answering random numbers through a phone call or text message, completely turning off our technological devices, not clicking on links that we are unaware of, creating strong passwords for accounts, and avoiding sharing/ giving out passwords to anyone.