Private Parts or Public Property?

The word privacy can hold many meanings and definitions under an array of circumstantial entities. Privacy can be unconsciously, yet voluntarily breeched by the individual’s own mishap. Alternatively, a person’s privacy can be breeched not only by friends, family and acquaintances, but also by the most powerful organizations and institutions in the world. A person’s privacy can be obtained by 3rd parties as well. Within the realm of the internet, privacy has recently become a highly debated sociopolitical issue. Privacy is defined in many ways and predominantly in co-ordinance with the stipulations at hand. More importantly, privacy is defined in a vast array, but it is a simple concept of perception of which information an individual wants to keep disclosed. “Internet privacy consists of privacy over the media of the internet: the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the internet, and to control who can access that information.” Many people portray privacy as a constitutional right, but unfortunately there are no strict and concise statutes defining the true rights of privacy.

The real issue at hand is whether or not people actually obtain privacy rights. There is also the possibility that hold none whatsoever. Since, the advent of mass file sharing over the internet, along with the passing of the Patriot Act as well as the Freedom of Information Act these rights have been stumped. Due to the vast information available on computer networks and the internet as a whole, people’s “private” information is being accessed, shared, and analyzed every day. Like every other sociopolitical issue there are conflicting stances. People are arbitrarily providing information about themselves all the time on the internet whether it is intentional or unintentional. To analyze the governmental and economical aspect of the issue; they argue that people are freely providing this information within the public domain and it should therefore be able to be replicated, reproduced and transmitted without the expressed written consent of the provider. This is because it had already been freely expressed. Also, there is a large dispute on the benefits of data mining technology and personal information sharing. Again, to take the elitist stance on the situation, this information not only provides the government and marketing agencies with necessary data to improve the security and the economy of the country, but it causes these organizations to market items to an individual that they hold of high interest or liking.

In my own opinion, a line must be drawn somewhere. I am not entirely against data mining and file sharing, but I do hold a strong opinion against the invasion of personal property and personal information sharing. The accessibility to someone’s personal information is ludicrous. You could type in an individual’s phone number on a search engine and receive their billing address free and immediately. Further, information such as living relatives, personal expenses, educational history, along with much more can be purchased for a few dollars. Ironically, that is just the power of an average internet user. More so, after purchasing that person’s information; the purchaser had single-handedly provided the internet site with their own IP address, their credit card information, name, address, etc. all on their own terms. The next step up in the hierarchy is governmental and business related entities. Businesses all across the world are trading, selling, and sharing information about people that the individual is completely unaware of. Furthermore, these businesses are in cohesion with the government and attain a symbiotic relationship to approaching personal information sharing. Once shared, this sort of information whether it’s an account number, and IP address, a person’s favorite place to shop, etc., the information it literally floating around the internet and even all over the world. What’s even worse, is the information that is, “legally shared,” is being hacked into everyday as well.

“This dilemma introduces another complication of how public life has changed. Just because it’s possible to get access to information, is it always OK to do so?” Why is this bad? Apparently, there are people sharing information about almost virtually everyone; even you the reader. Information as crucial and important as individual’s social security numbers, bank account numbers, and even PIN numbers are being illegally accessed and used in fraudulence. “If a third party has sufficient access to the computer, legitimately or not, this may be used to lessen the user’s privacy.” I myself became victim to this. I was always skeptical about sharing this sort of information on the internet, but since I totaled my car I found online banking and bill-pay to be extremely convenient. I then started to notice miniscule transactions appearing on my account, but thought nothing of it. After several times, I decided to keep record of all the transactions that I had made within the billing period. I came to realize that these minute transactions were not my own. What I find to be bewildering is that this would usually aggravate me beyond any tolerant threshold, but I simply accept it instead. It still continually occurs. I accept it though; because I knew from the start there was an enormous risk in providing this kind of information, but I did it anyway. To elaborate further, since these unauthorized purchases were only occurring one to three times a month of approximately one to two dollars I decided to allow it. I could have arbitrated this with my credit card provider, but felt that it would be a waste of time because I could not prove that it was not me that had made the transactions, especially since they were marked at places that I would normally go. Conclusively, if there were substantial reason to argue these purchases than I would, but I still feel that there is little I could do if anything at all. Obviously, there needs to be a stand in defending the little privacy we have or soon we may not have privacy at all.

Works Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_privacy

Boyd, Danah. (2007). “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?”
Knowledge Tree 13, May. http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/?page_id=28

Lackaff, Derek. (2007). “Privacy” Lecture Notes and Discussion 16, July.