MAREK MULARCZYK | 21 November 2024
Instinctively, we all feel that we should have privacy online. But do we? Are we taking advantage of all the online technologies without sacrificing our privacy online?
We all should be able to live free, without fears that some details from our private lives could leak online, or be revealed online as in many cases.
However, the truth is often far from it.
For example, so called "health trackers", do so much more than that. I just read in a book, written by Danielle Keats Citron - a lawyer, that Amazon Halo, which is now discontinued, would do much more than just track your health activites. It would also collect enormous amounts of data, personal data, so that companies like Amazon would make money from it. As Danielle mentions in her book, to quote her:
"For most firms, privacy isn't a high priority because it isn't profitable. Intimate data is more valuable than one-time purchase or regular subscription fees. It is so valuable that firms keep our intimate data long after we've trashed their devices or deleted their apps."
She also mentions, which we are in a way aware, that companies bury the details of their data collection practices in privacy policies which no one has time to read.
And the amounts of data companies are holding abou us are staggering. I remember hearing a story about a British journalist who contacted a dating app Tinder for a copy of her records, and what she received was a staggering 800(!) pages repor! The report included not only the photos, videos or messages she shared on the platform, but also the times and locations of her messages, and even her Facebook likes...
As many often say, this is the price we pay for free access to online platforms. As they say, nothing is free. If you're accessing certain platform for free, you often pay with your privacy.
Often (always?), we agree to terms and conditions, because we have to, without even reading them. Why would you if it's so long? According to an interesting study, if we were to read all privacy policies we agree to in a year, we would have to spend 154 hours to read them...
An interesting fact is that, according to researches, most of us (apparently as many as 75%) think that if companies have privacy policies then they won't share our data with other companies. The truth is drastically different...
To be continued? Maybe...
Some food for thought,
M.