Privacy & Confidentiality

We consider ourselves fortunate to live in an era of technological advancement where our society has continuously evolved by surpassing the physical obstacles of information-processing and storage space requirements.  The transition of information processing from individual processing to computerized processing and the transition of information storage from drawers and filing cabinets to hard drives and server rooms led to the facilitate storing and processing information on the Exabyte level. This combined with the increase in accessibility of that information by a larger group of users, now that that information is available across the network rather than in a single physical localized area, raises privacy concerns and threatens the individual’s security. Social Media, a major cornerstone in the Digital Age, including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, makes up a large component of individual interactions and documentation of people’s lives, in which friending individuals is a simple task which allows the accessing of the individual's personal profile. This accessibility increase of information redefines the boundaries of relational privacy that have now been transgressed by the social interaction advances. Other than the enormous benefits of data brokering, which includes an ease of access to develop personal relationships for symbiotic gain, with applications collecting location data and personal information such as your date of birth, email address and access to private pictures, videos and data, are we really safe in this cyberspace with our data being stored on a remote server or database that is waiting to be hacked.  What about those not guilty of having committed a crime, why should we give access of our private info?  Some people make passwords using personal information some of which may be found on their profile page. To wake up one morning and find yourself bankrupt thanks to identity theft; all of us are in the scanner, being watched, scrutinized and possible targets and victims. An article provided by ITPRO called “what to do if your data is being sold online” talks about “Around 600,000 people in the UK had their personal details stolen over the last year and the staggering thing is, criminals are able to buy information including email addresses, passwords, card details and even bank account details for around £19 a pop.” In compilation, every interaction and activity in the digital age is recorded and watched. We have transcended from the issue of physical privacy to a relational one.