Assignment 5: Mind your Business

There are many definitions that one could come up with for the term ‘privacy’. To me, privacy is the ability to withhold personal information and possessions from the unknown (the unknown being the entire public or just one person). The real definition, however, can date back all the way to 1791, when Amendment IV was added to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution. This amendment simply stated that

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized, [therefore securing the privacy of the citizens of the United States of America.]

Then, hundreds of years later, technology and the internet brought a whole new set of problems in terms of people’s privacy, not only in the U.S., but all over the world. These two entities, when put together, define a whole new concept of privacy. This new concept of internet privacy can be described as the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the internet and also to ability to control who can access that information and when. Without proper knowledge and education of internet privacy, many risks could result, including the obtained knowledge of personal information that could result in stalking or identity theft.

Many people, when thinking about things like internet privacy, often think, “it won't happen to me.” This type of attitude is exactly what can lead to an invasion of this privacy on a personal level. This type of attitude is exactly the kind of attitude that I used to carry about the internet, that is, until that privacy was invaded. Not only was my internet privacy invaded, but it was by somebody who I knew and I ended up facing consequences because of how naïve I was about my privacy on the internet. Most internet privacy issues that you hear of among the high school and college populations arise because of social networking systems such as MySpace and Facebook. This is where my scenario begins...

Like most kids my age in high school, I had a MySpace account. On my account I did what every, typical high school girl did: unknowingly posted information and pictures of me on the site without resetting any privacy settings, thinking that, "everybody is doing it" so what would be so wrong with it? Well, the answer to that question is my own stupidity. Pictures of myself that I had posted of me at a party holding a Hard Mikes Lemonade bottle had gotten into the wrong hands and then into the hands of an authoritative figure at the school. This ultimately resulted in me getting a 20 day suspension from the track and field team in which I was participating in because of a violation of the Code of Conduct at my school. My immediate reaction to this was anger: How could this person do this to me? Then came confusion: How did she find this picture if she wasn't my 'friend' on MySpace? Then came the biggest reaction: realization. I had realized that the whole event had taken place because of my own naive mind.

Because of my own personal encounter with the violation of internet privacy, while answering questions such as: What are the biggest issues concerning personal privacy posed by the internet? And: Do I worry about my privacy online? I have concluded that the biggest challenges that the internet poses in terms of privacy has nothing to do with the internet itself, but has more to do with people being very naïve about protecting themselves while online. According to an MSNBC.com survey, 60% of people feel that their privacy is slipping away from them, but in another survey, only 7% do something about it in order to protect themselves. So why does violation of privacy on the internet pose such a threat? Education. People are not getting the amount of education or information about protecting themselves on the internet that they should be, therefore decreasing the awareness of the dangers it poses. So, when answering the question of whether or not I worry about my privacy online, I would have to answer by saying that I don’t worry for myself as much as I do for others. I believe that I am educated enough to protect myself online as much as I possibly can and have also learned from past events in order to do this even more. The people I do worry for, however, is the younger generation. As technology grows, so does the knowledge of that technology in the younger generations. What doesn’t grow with that knowledge of technology, though, is the knowledge of the dangers they could pose in terms of privacy. With technology comes great responsibility to educate about protection of privacy when using these new technologies, especially when it comes to the internet, otherwise, more privacy problems and dangers will continue to arise as these technologies continue to expand.

Citations:
(1791). United States Constitution. Retrieved September 28, 2007, from Cornell University Law School Web site: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmentiv

Internet Privacy. (2007). Internet Privacy. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved September 28, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About

Sullivan, Bob (2006, Oct 17). Privacy Lost: Does Anybody Care?. Retrieved September 28, 2007, from MSNBC.com Web site: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/