There are no secrets in cyber space @ aka stealthily tracking
Every
time you go on the web or even hit ‘like’ in response to a request, you leave a
trail that lays bare your inside story
This
is about how your life is not yours anymore. Voluntarily and stealthily, you as
an individual are an open book now. Your inner circle of trust, likes, choice
of food, holidays and even intimate moments are in the public domain. What you
search and shop for, and whom you connect with are no longer personal. It’s not
just Big Data or complex search algorithms invading your privacy, it is also
simple monitoring (aka stealthily tracking) on the web.
“On
the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” said the punchline to a cartoon in The
New Yorker in 1993. The web and social media give more credibility to this
cartoon now than at any other time. It took a good twelve days for news of
President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination to cross the Atlantic on a steamer. It
appears that the news from Washington reached New York after the mailer had
left the port there and hence a boat was sent in hot pursuit to pass on the
news. Reuters claimed the credit for delivering the news first to the world,
albeit twelve days later!
Fast
forward to nearly eight score years later: Lincoln’s assassination would most
likely have been captured a Facebook Live or shared through Periscope on
Twitter. It’s more likely a person thousands of miles away from Washington
would have seen it live as it happened even before the president’s staff knew
what was happening.
Speed age
There
are no arguments countering the credit for speed this information age has
given, be it the run-up to the US elections, natural disasters or happenings in
your circle of trust. The abundance of information available on the net coupled
with search tools that retrieve them in nanoseconds has made encyclopedia a
thing of the past.
Social
media is now the largest media industry with information constantly being
updated. It’s an open platform where every individual is a writer, photographer
or ghost watcher. Not only is what you write published, it’s shared and has a
cascading impact of information dissemination. The centre of this industry
revolves around you as an individual and how you have turned your life into an
open book.
Big
Data is a catch-all term for the digital breadcrumbs you leave behind as you go
about your daily life. It comprises huge data and analytic tools to mark you as
a target customer. Businesses use this information to understand customers
better. Whether it is right or wrong to utilise that data is a separate legal
and ethical debate. But what you choose to like, share and leave as footprints
is individual choice. While Big data analytics argue for the benefits of such
information to industry, identity theft and loss of privacy cannot be ignored.
Scams involving loss of identity, including the recent Mumbai call centre
incident, point to how open we have become by accepting the fine print on the
net.
‘Social
media privacy’ is an oxymoron. If you are on the net, it’s not private anymore.
Every time you search for the best restaurant deal, share good news with your
social media connects or tweet your mind, your ‘audience’ is bigger than you
know. Every online move leaves cyber footprints that are rapidly becoming
fodder for research without you ever realizing it.
Using
social media for academic research is accelerating and raising ethical concerns
along the way, as vast amounts of information collected by private companies
are providing new insights on all aspects of everyday life. Try making a search
for hotels and a target advertisement pops up on your social post the next time
you visit. Call your family doctor or colleague a couple of time and, voila, he
may come up as a ‘people you know’ on your social page.
Information as fodder
The
public space is now turned into a behavioral laboratory and every one of us is
fodder for the reservoir of information.
How
many of us recollect the hundreds of friends we have on social media and the
information sites we have shared our email ID on and answers to security
questions posed to recollect password? Increasingly, we share more information
about ourselves with a wider audience than we would have done earlier. Stalking
is an offence in many countries, yet ghost watchers of friends and viewing
photos are socially acceptable. Would we share our wedding photos and wishes to
loved ones with three hundred odd friends in public?
And
if those friends happen to like our photos, they are, in turn, viewed by their
friends whom we are barely aware of. But that is what many of us do every day.
Source | Business Line | 28 November 2016
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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