Blog post #8

 After watching those TED talks about data privacy I learned some new things but most of the information was stuff  I already knew. This lack of privacy in the modern age is scary, to say the least with the rise of surveillance having a private digital life is near impossible. Even for someone like me who has only posted five things to his Instagram in the past 4 years.

This level of surveillance feels almost Orwellian at times Although there are ways to avoid this surveillance with Imessages encryption, WhatsApps' end to end encryption, Facetime, Duckduckgo, etc we seem to always have the watchful eye of either a private company or a government on us. From the TED talk from Catherina Crump, we learn about automatic license plate readers and how many there are. An example she used was of a man who acquired the pictures that were taken of his car, He got dozens of them the most notable being one that was of him and his children in his own driveway.

This is just an example of how the government has no respect for its people or their privacy as technology evolves we can expect the watchful eye to get stronger and more advanced. If any of these surveillance systems are compromised the data gathered can be used to exploit, blackmail, or target the everyday person. Knowing that files upon files that contain information about me exist, these files that I do not have access to, and can be viewed by unknown parties without my knowledge is not just upsetting but terrifying.

No entity should have such a level of surveillance on innocent people. The government should limit how much data private companies can collect and what kind of data they can collect. Similar restrictions should apply to the government as well. The future is uncertain when it comes to these things because both the digital privacy industry and the surveillance industry are multi-billion dollar industries.

Something I've always said when it comes to digital privacy. "If a company or government wants your information they'll get it" You can protect yourself as much as possible but if an entity wants your information they have the resources to get it. For example, if Google wanted my data specifically they have millions of dollars to spare some of the smartest computer scientists in the world and tech that isn't available to the public. What I use to protect myself and minimize my data collection is, using Apple's messaging system which uses high-level encryption, apple claims they aren't able to see users' texts, and Brave browser which is a free browser that collects less data from users' google and comes with a free-to-use built-in VPN. Most importantly I don't give out any personal information over the phone and I try to do everything in person.