Online Privacy

    We live in an era with more technological necessity than ever before and it has led to a drastic decrease in the day-to-day privacy of average people. Everyone deserves to have time to themselves or moments of brevity in our cluttered, busy lives, but digitally there is no moment to relax. Now more than ever everybody is being monitored and observed silently by major corporations and even governments. Every search, every post, and every moment people are online is being saved and stored for later use and is often sold to third-party companies in an attempt to tailor the online experience perfectly to each person. 

    Nobody is safe from being monitored and tracked by the devices they use and the websites they commonly visit. It is said best by Juan Enriquez in his Ted Talk, our online data is similar to a virtual tattoo since it is permanent and paints a picture into the kind person everyone is. It is easier than ever to lose sight of the larger picture in regards to where our information is kept and what it is being used for. people unknowingly sign away their right to privacy when skipping through terms and conditions like they are trained to do.  

    Now is the time for people to understand the steps they can take to protect their internet privacy and keep their data from being shared. Many pieces of technology do not have built in security systems, as mentioned by Christopher Soghoian. These security measures are ways to prevent the government from tracking people's private messages and calls, something historically open to wiretapping. Glenn Greenwald also makes a point in how people are willing to say they have nothing to hide when asked about privacy, but are never willing to actually share their private information when asked to. We naturally have an urge to keep secrets for various reasons, and we should be able to know when those secrets are being shared or sold.