Maintaining digital privacy in the light of recent trends of kidnapping.
The impact of global technological advancement and its veritable innovations on our daily living is undoubtably invaluable- from the transaction of businesses to digital recreations, sport and social networking- social media permeates almost all areas of our lives. As the advantages of social media abounds, it has also become the bane of our society as bad elements and workers of evil-doings have also found expression and an identity in its volatility to perpetuate their evil merchandise, by harvesting data of unsuspecting users to be used to their detriment.
The ability of individuals to interact online without sacrificing their personal privacy is a vital part of the Internet’s value, and is intimately related to its trustworthiness. Privacy is about retaining the ability to disclose data consensually, and with expectations about the context and scope of sharing. Identifiability, linkability of data, and the mining of vast quantities of aggregated information all erode the individual’s ability to manage disclosure, context, and scope.
It is however important to address digital privacy in the wake of the recent social malady of kidnappings that has taken the social media platform as a fishing ground for victims in the form of job advertisements, online invitations for interview, data compromise (hacking of accounts), spamming amongst others.
Asides the duty of care regarding a user’s privacy that a social media platform owes a user, it also behoves the users to also ensure the protection of their privacy by not carelessly offering personal information of themselves or their loved ones to the public where such information may be accessed to their detriment.
Online Privacy is a global concern and much as been done in recent times to secure better protection and create more awareness on privacy issues for internet users. With people putting more and more of their lives online, privacy on social media is going to be a main concern for many going forward. The challenges of digital privacy may be gleaned under two heads which are:
1. Online Data privacy breaches related to the infrastructure of the social network.
2. Online Privacy Issues originating from the users.
These two camps are not completely unrelated as well. A combination of poor judgement from the user and a breach can lead to major issues with privacy on social media that are not easily remedied. Privacy online is heavily hinged on those two sub-heads and it is important to understand how both can affect Privacy online. If you’re aware of how to maintain your privacy on social media by not sharing or exposing your information, that’s a great start. However, as a user of any social network you need to be aware of the information they likely have about you and the business model they use. A user can avoid shooting yourself in the foot and still get burnt due to a data breach of a social media site. It is not uncommon for people to share their photos on Instagram and include their location in the Photo post, Consequences of such action is not on the Social media Platform, but on the user directly, having shared too much information. The reality of the fact is that privacy on social media can vanish in the blink of an eye over something that is seemingly in-consequential or innocent. When a user is dealing with the kind of reach and scale that these sites have, the time it can take for these mistakes to come back to bite is extremely short. The number of people who have no idea how social networks operate when it comes to privacy is far too high. By becoming more aware of this aspect of the sites they use so frequently, many people would be able to adequately protect themselves from some common mistakes that come back to bite them.
Some data protection and safety measures are suggested below :
1. Understanding Privacy Setting on The Platforms: This is one of the most overlooked aspects when it comes to social media privacy. Most Online Users don’t want to take the time to read the user agreements because it’s boring or takes too long. While it is agreed that reading legal-ease isn’t the most fun thing to do, it is a smart thing to do. This is a very small time investment considering the amount of time the user will likely spend on the site once signed up. Also while user data is typically used in aggregating to improve services, there’s always a strong chance that the terms of service allow that company.
2. Location Setting and its impact: It is another important area mostly ignored by many online and mobile app users. Many Users turn on the location on their mobile hand held devices totally ignoring the fact that the company can actually monitor and draw data from their everyday life using that feature. When you Turn off location services, the smartphone’s operating system and apps should not be able to track you. That’s unless your smartphone runs Android, because Google will keep tracking you even if you’ve disabled location services. It is also advisable you share locations with loved ones when circumstances warrants you going to an unknown place, this makes it easier to be located in the event of an emergency.
3. Personal Information, Artificial Intelligence and Adverts: it is important to note that flowing from number 2 above, aggregated data, including location data, such as what shopping mall you happen to be in, is prime data for marketers. It can be used alongside your demographic information to push products to you. It is very worrisome and more scary is the fact that artificial intelligence by the marketing industry on data from social platforms that can make this intrusive. AI, social media, and marketing are the perfect combination. Marketing works best when it is personalized and AI tools are offering marketers a way to do this. For example, AI could inform that a user always uses Twitter on days X and Y at times A and B, it could then translate a combination of their demographic data, personal information, location, and social media usage to create highly focused ads this is why you would look up or talk about something and the next minute you’re online you are welcomed with a related ad, this has become one of most unsettling internet innovation.
4. Use Two-Step Authentication: where this option is available, it requires two steps: entering your password and entering a number only you can access. For example, step one is logging in to your google account with your username and password. In step two, Google sends a temporary code to you in a text message or, even better, through an app likand you enter that code to log in.
5. Researching and online community protection: it is common to get invited for interview by companies online, when this happens, the interviewee is expected to make background checks about the company like finding out the address, key officers of the company by duly researching about the company and asking questions on platforms to be sure of the authenticity of the interview and the status of such company and it is also wise to inform friends and loved ones of decision intention to honour such interview, where and whenever the decision is made.
The lines between privacy, intrusiveness, and relevance are becoming somewhat blurry and individuals are expected to take deliberate steps to ensure the protection of their privacy while online.
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