Privacy: How Moving Online Put Us More in Danger than Ever

By Rashi Sharma

In a crisis where our lives are on a computer, one must take the time to consider the information certain technology companies can take, and how safe you really are online. Here is a list of what these companies store and some tips to keep them at bay.

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In 2020, COVID-19 wrecked the world. Businesses closed, Stocks were down, and millions of people were falling sick. As a response, jobs and schools were moved online. Zoom, FaceTime, and other video calling apps became an essential part of our lives, almost as much as shelter or food.

In January of 2020, Netflix released a documentary called “The Social Dilemma”, which discussed the dangers of social media and what the companies really do with your personal information. In the documentary, they gather former employees from multiple social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to describe just what happens behind the screens.

Right at the beginning of the film, there is a quote:

“Only two organizations call their customers ‘users’: drugs and software.”

This is a major part of the film that brings perspective and tone to the documentary. However dark or exaggerated one might think this quote may sound, it is true. Without you even knowing, the websites one goes on are looking at everything that person does, how far they scroll, and even how long one looks at a YouTube thumbnail or an image on Google, right down to the millisecond.

People may not have thought of it much back then, but now, when their life is moving online, they’re making new accounts and using the internet as kind of a coping mechanism to escape the havoc in the real world.

People have begrudgingly put more and more of their personal information on the internet to enjoy using those platforms. They’ve just accepted that being tracked is a part of life. But they have no idea how bad that is, especially in the United States. In April of 2017, Congress allowed internet service providers to collect, store, and sell browsing data from their customers. On the other hand, the European Union gave a $2.7 million fine to Google that same year.

Even now, as you are reading this, Google is probably tracking you. A popular joke amongst some people is how the FBI sees everything, but it’s true. It’s not something to be messed with. Any person of high social standing can pull out your data from one day or one decade ago, and that’s where things start to get messy.

According to the Harvard Gazette and a cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier, “Europe has more stringent privacy regulations than the United States. In general, Americans tend to mistrust government and trust corporations. Europeans tend to trust government and mistrust corporations.” The result of this is more emphasis on government surveillance over corporations in America and vice versa in the EU.

Google may be there to solve your problems, but blessings always come at a price. They take your data in the form of cookies and bombard you with ads that gain money from how long you look at them. Maybe it’s only for a few cents, but if you multiply the fifty cents that the website is selling the information for and multiply that by one million to one billion people, that’s millions of dollars that company is gaining, just by you looking at an ad for five seconds.

So how do you make sure that companies don’t know who you are on the internet? The graphic below is tips from Schneier’s book – Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World.

Graphic by Rebecca Coleman, Harvard Staff

If you want more information, I highly recommend The Social Dilemma for an interesting, worthwhile watch. If TV isn’t your thing, then read Bruce Schneier’s book, Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World. Both are eye-openers that will both rock your world and help you control it.

Next time you open up your laptop, unlock your phone, or click on an app on your tablet, don’t forget the information that website or app can gain, simply by you opening it. Make sure to follow all the privacy procedures, and you can feel secure online knowing that your information is in a safer place.