Reference no: EM133330331
Question: Is Technology a Serious Threat to Privacy?
Case Study: Modern technologies became a vital resource that influences human activities, especially communication. Nevertheless, recent developments pose some critical issues, such as breaches of privacy and inability to control personal data. The research is aimed to investigate whether technologies are a serious threat to privacy of the users or not. The specific types of technologies that this study assesses are Internet-enabled communication devices, such as personal computers and smartphones, search engines, social media, and the Internet of Things. Technology gives the opportunity to get necessary information fast, makes people's life easier and more flexible, and provides better communication, but many privacy and security threats compromise all these benefits.
Privacy Challenges
The active usage of digital technologies might cause the loss of personal data because the process of collecting and analyzing information is not well-protected. Mackenzie Adams, an expert in communication technologies, states that active users of digital technologies might face different privacy concerns, such as identity theft, data tampering, denial-of-service issues, and cyberattacks (18). For instance, modern smartphones have sensors that track their owner real-time location, and this data can be used by the criminals. According to Adams , the more information a person gives about themselves with the help of digital technologies, the easier it is to predict their behavioral patterns (16). It is impossible to fully delete information once published or shared on the Internet. Hence, the active usage of digital technologies leads to privacy problems.
Digital technologies and artificial intellect have rapidly developed and include many methods of privacy-sensitive data analysis, which increases the privacy violation risks because of the inappropriate usage of these processes. Cameron Kerry, an experienced journalist in cybersecurity issues, described the impact of artificial intelligence on privacy. Firstly, artificial intelligence uses facial recognition systems, and it is easy to find a person with the help of basic personal data, such as photo and this program (Kerry). However, some countries and individuals use face recognition for illegal purposes. In this case, technology serves as a way to track people without their permission. Apart from that, the main problem discussed in the article is the protection of personal data (Kerry). For instance, tracking with the help of personal data analysis, being performed without people's permission, might be regarded as a serious violation. It compromises one's privacy and may push people to their limits.
Social Media
Social media is the easiest way to get personal information of a user or become a victim of Internet fraud because of reckless personal information sharing and lack of data protection. Nyoni and Velempini, professional experts in computer science and information, described examples of privacy violations on Facebook (4). In these cases, the active usage of social media led to becoming victims of different online crimes, such as scams, identity fraud, and cyberbullying. Moreover, stolen personal data of social media users might be sold to online marketers. According to Nyoni and Velempini, these problems result from the lack of knowledge in personal data protection by social media users and absence of data protection tools of social media platforms. The careless sharing of banking information via social media might result in financial losses. According to Albulayhi and El Khediriare, misuse of identity, phishing attacks, viruses, and malware are observed due to the active sharing of personal information on social media (7). Social media users might post personal information about other people without their permission, and it can be used by the criminals. The authors of the article stated that social media is the easiest way to attack a person's confidential information, especially financial one (Albulayhi and El Khediriare9). Another discussed aspect was the spread of malware. These days, fake news is spread like a virus thanks to social media, and it is hard to avoid them. One should always cross-check the news received to avoid sharing something unverified that might harm their friends or relatives. . In this way, social media poses a threat to privacy by lacking good data protection tools and reckless sharing of personal data by the users.
The allowance to collect confidential personal information about social media users challenges the main principles of fair data sharing. Social media might be used for different goals, starting from finding new friends, the improvement of marketing and political campaigns, to personal data breach. Nir Kshetri, an expert in the sphere of computing technologies, illustrated that social media might be used to collect sensitive information about its users, such as their ethnic background, sexual orientation, gender, age, religious beliefs, intelligence, political affiliations, and intelligence (Kshetri). In this case, Big Data might serve as a way to compromise and violate data security and personal data protection principles. Such information might be used to influence and control the audience and provoke them to different actions. Hence, the article highlights the possible risks, such as being under control, and loss of personal data because of the extensive use of modern technologies.
Impact of Modern Technologies on Life
The lack of efficient authentication mechanisms provides hackers with the opportunity to have access to personal data. Moreover, it is estimated that in the near future, almost all devices would be connected to the Internet. Definitely, apart from convenience, this process has disadvantages. According to Engin Leloglu , Internet users usually become victims of different crimes, such as spoofing, device tampering, DoS attacks, eavesdropping, and wormholes (126). It happens because of the lack of data protection and inefficient authentication mechanisms. With global connectivity of the devices, the scale of the problem would be higher. The author stated that it is possible to prevent this by increasing the level of authenticity, authorization, and confidentiality (Leloglu 125). Legoglu Engin seems to have deep knowledge of privacy concerns on the Internet, so his opinion is argumentative. Therefore, the rapid development of the Internet and digital technologies should ensure high level of authentication.
Challenges of the Internet of Things
Connected system of digital devices and artificial intelligence technologies negatively influence the freedom and political rights of Internet users. These days, many threats to democracy and political life might be caused by the help of digital technologies and artificial intelligence. For instance, in 2016, Russia interfered in the US presidential elections with the help of digital technologies. Manheim and Kaplan researched the way how artificial intelligence and digital technologies could be used to obtain illegal access to personal data. According to Manheim and Kaplan, the rapid development of artificial intelligence poses a threat to informational and decisional privacy (117). The main principle of the functioning of all these systems is to collect and analyze personal information to sell different goods or services. The authors exclaimed that ongoing improvements in digital technologies might lead to manipulating of people's decisions and might be harmful to society (Manheim and Kaplan 121). Manheim and Kaplan are experts on privacy and data security, and they provide an overview of the major misusage of technologies for democracy, and their opinion is well described. Thus, the rapid growth of digital technologies poses a threat to privacy, democracy, and policy rights because of the possibility to manipulate Internet users by collecting and analyzing personal data, and the article explains all these threats.
The Internet of Things violates privacy and security because of increasing connectivity, which allows getting access to personal information from any device connected to the Internet and the rapid growth of information flows. It resulted in the emergence of serious privacy concerns and issues in personal data protection. Threat to identification is the most dominant. Ziegeldorf et al., experts in communication and distributed systems, stated that other major challenges include surveillance, localization, tracking, fingerprinting, speech recognition, and profiling (2734-2735). For example, the increasing usage of online services leaves a data trail, which allows one to track users' activity and location. Apart from that, the authors illustrated the disadvantages of high connectivity of devices, which might lead to sensitive information loss, such as health data (Ziegeldorf et al. 2735-2736). For instance, smart gadgets interact with other devices and use history logs, which might contain personal data. In this case, such information might be compromised. As more devices become connected to the Internet, it is harder to keep personal data safe.
Carsten Maple, a researcher at Cyber Security Centre, described the major challenges in the IoT, such as personal and intellectual data loss, and cyberattacks. For example, if the intellectual data of one company is stolen, it would be easy to start terrorizing all its partners, stakeholders, and third parties. The author stated that the main challenge of the IoT is the rapid growth and flow of digital technologies, which affects privacy and security (Maple 166). The author's opinion is well-developed, so the article is useful for understanding the main threats of the Internet of Things. Hence, the Internet of Things poses a serious threat to confidential information and privacy, especially because of the rapid information flow, so the protection tools should be used to safeguard the users from that threat.
Benefits of Technology
Digital technologies help communicate with people worldwide, make access to information easier, and ensure more flexibility in people's lives, but all these benefits are followed by major privacy challenges. Digital technologies made information exchange and connectivity easier to reach. For instance, all information might be found with the help of devices and the Internet. However, such easy access may result in tracking of Internet users. For example, a simple smartphone can be used to do that, and one should ensure that the data located there is properly safeguarded (Adams 16). The Internet of Things allows access to the personal information of its users from different devices, which brings more flexibility in terms of doing different activities. The rapid increase in the number of devices with Internet access makes it hard to check each and provide proper data protection. Nevertheless, reckless access to personal information from other devices might lead to data loss or security issues (Carsten 166). The main idea of social media is to communicate and share personal information with others, but the more information people share on social media, the biggest threat to privacy becomes and creates many real problems for their users (Nyoni and Velempini 3). In this way, despite all the benefits mentioned above, the modern technologies pose real security risks, and they should not be neglected if one wants to protect own information and avoid serious issues.
All in all, the rapid development of digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things brings many benefits to people. However, it poses a threat to privacy as well. The active and reckless usage of social media and other modern technologies leads to the identification and personal data issues. Digital technologies increase the risks of becoming the victims of online illegal actions. In this case, it is essential to be aware of such threats to prevent them.