Do we care about Privacy?

Posted by Rose Molly on January 25th, 2019

The basic reasons to protect your data privacy irrespective of not having any to hide: either ideological reason or any practical reason.

Talking of Ideological reasons,

User privacy is our fundamental right which we never really had. As we hold the right to divorce, right to interracial marriages, female labor, freedom of speech, and others, we never really had the right to privacy. Different dictatorships across the globe, still don’t. Our previous Generations have already fought for the right to privacy, but we do not tend to care about it showing how less concerned we are about our data privacy.

Our Privacy is a human right. As per Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12 “No one must be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation.” Data privacy is our human right similar to the right to justice, equality, freedom, nationality, religion, etc.

Saying that have nothing to hide is neither true nor realistic. Never confuse data privacy with secrecy. You must have a pass-code or a security code in your mobile phone. Same thing goes for email. Nobody hands over their phone to read the chats or view the pictures. If you don’t have anything to hide, why would you care? But oh yes! You do. In fact everybody does.  Our Privacy is something that makes us human.

And what are the Practical reasons?

Private Information going in wrong hands can be too dangerous.

Are you okay with government officials or security companies or agencies holding back your private data? You might have trusted Google or Facebook. But let’s say these online giants gets hacked and all your information goes to those malicious hands? What if someone is targeting your entire family, or company? Would you still stay quiet and be okay with that? Would you be fine even after knowing that your private emails, photos, or chats are with someone who can all set to blackmail you?

Can you predict the future? No you can’t!

Maybe your private data is not at any risk right now! But what after 30 years from now? Suppose you run a political administration for a company. Can you even imagine the complexity of running an entire company, where the privacy of every employee is extremely crucial? The case of Sony’s hacking taught us all about how our private information can impact our life.

One’s private life out of nowhere turn out to be a weapon. We often joke about things that are sensitive to us. In fact, among friends, we all do. Our behavior changes according to the people we are with. But what if out of nowhere that context is no longer a joke. What if that “joke” happens to fall in the hands of that one malicious individual trying to harm your reputation?

All your information holds value and you need to be careful of that

Companies like Google or Facebook allows one to upload infinite data on their server, absolutely free. But what is their business model? How do they manage to make billions? They sell your info to advertising companies. But they never asked you if you wanted to sell your information. If anyone you don’t know will ask questions about your personal life for the sake of selling it, won’t you mind that? Probably yes, right? But you allow the same to happen every time you use any online service that makes bucks by trading your info.

Hope that at least now, you will be more concerned about your privacy and your private data being exposed to the snooping eyes.

There’s one messaging app we should all be using: Signal. It has strong encryption, it’s free, it works on every mobile platform, and the developers are committed to keeping it simple and fast by not mucking up the experience with ads, web-tracking, stickers, or animated poop emoji.

 Source: http://dataprivacycoalition.org/do-we-care-about-privacy/

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Rose Molly

About the Author

Rose Molly
Joined: November 13th, 2018
Articles Posted: 33

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