As mobile phones add more and more capabilities, they also become hubs of increased information about the person using the phone and the people he or she interacts with. By combining data about contacts, browsing, and location, a mobile phone offers a trove of private personal information. However, because the world of mobile phones has evolved so quickly, there are strong concerns that this private information may not be adequately protected. This is another eye-opening look at ways in which we are willfully turning over privacy in exchange for convenience. The convenience benefits are huge, but once privacy is given up, can it ever truly be reclaimed?
For anyone who has read Orwell's 1984, it isn't hard to conjure up an image of Big Brother and a loss of privacy at the hands of technology. However, especially in the U.S., I think most people assume that radical steps like installing cameras and video screens in all homes would be such a worrying and visible step that could and would be easily squashed by privacy advocates. When big, flat-panel TVs started to become affordable and more and more common in American homes, I started thinking about how the government might never need to force us to install the technology necessary for a surveillance state; instead, we would willfully put it into place ourselves in the name of entertainment.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not proposing any conspiracy theories. But we have basically brought the equipment of a surveillance society into our own lives in the form of huge TVs, webcams, mobile phones (with cameras and video), and social networks that thrive on more and more information divulged online. I wish I could say that I trust the government or corporations to handle this information both securely and responsibly, but in reality, I think that is a naive position. The government faces its own cybersecurity difficulties (seen with things like Wikileaks or hacking by Anonymous), and its track record on privacy protections (for example, the Patriot Act or COINTELPRO) is dubious at best. Corporations face the same cybersecurity problems as well as the challenge of short-term, profit-oriented opportunities clouding wiser, long-term decision-making (for example, the type of financial wheeling and dealing that spurred our current economic crisis). When I think about the wealth of information I've provided to "the cloud" or that is easily accessible on my phone or computer, it honestly frightens me. I'm not sure what exactly it is that I'm afraid of, but the potential for misuse -- whether accidental or malicious -- is enormous.
"What Does Your Phone Know About You? More Than You Think" by Alexis Madrigal
Published in the Atlantic, April 25, 2011
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/what-does-your-phone-know-about-you-more-than-you-think/237786/
Eric
No comments:
Post a Comment