Blog Post # 5

 Privacy

TedTalk Videos

Juan Enriquez - Your online life, permanent as a tattoo

Catherine Crump - The small and surprisingly dangerous detail the police track about you

Christopher Soghoian - How to avoid surveillance ... with the phone on your pocket

Darieth Chisolm -  How revenge porn turns lives upside down

The related topics discussed in the videos have strong relevance to the average person’s life, my family's lives, and my life. From the predators surfing the internet now to all the surveillance technology in use today, one may question the very idea of what privacy even means in today’s society. 

Personally, I did not think about the surveillance technology when I was driving until I went to Australia. In Australia, I learned that in many of the rural areas there was a shortage of law enforcement and as a consequence, the local and state governments around the areas in was in allowed for speed checks that took the license plate of the cars and if the car was tracked to be going over the speed limit, they would receive a speeding ticket in the mail. 

In returning to the United States, I paid closer attention to where surveillance cameras were and realized just how popular they were. Still, I was blind to the other forms of privacy invasion like on my phone which I did not realize could be so easily hacked. 

This has affected some of my personal life and has affected my family’s lives. From social media being hacked to my brother getting a ticket, my family and I have seen the consequences of surveillance technology. 

The American government today, there needs to be more action taken to prevent unethical attainment of personal information. Action needs to be taken to limit the usage of surveillance technology in public areas, residential areas, and private property that explains the details of who, where, and how people can use surveillance technology in the three different areas.

Action by Americans should be taken like Darieth Chisolm did by taking legal action. If more people take action that is relevant to the topic of privacy, the sooner and more likely there are to have laws passed to set regulations and standards for the use of surveillance technology and electronic privacy. 

Encrypted apps and technology are being explored and some are already usable. Apps like WhatsApp use encryption coding to protect users from being hacked or having companies see their personal messages to protect the privacy of their users. The next step should be how to use the same encryption ideas and implement them in social media so that the integrity and privacy of social media users are protected and users have more comfortability in their choice of how they want to express themselves.