Blog #7: Privacy Policies

     

    The whole privacy conversation when it comes to the government and other companies being able to track everything we are doing is very scary. This affects everyone in my life including me because we are all being watched in similar ways. In the Ted Talk spoken by Catherine Crump, she spoke about how just use driving cars around, the government can see where we go. Even if you have an old car with no GPS or any other tracking system, there are automatic license readers that take pictures of your license plates while you're parked or driving or wherever. This is due to the low cost of the system nowadays and therefore the police departments have all of this data and can use it if they want to. Even if you're not a criminal being watched and tracked, your data of where they have tracked you is still in the system regardless of who you are. This is honestly so sickening to me the think my little baby cousins are being watched while they go to and from school or to and from sports practices while they are only 7 and 10 years old. I believe the police departments and the government really doesn't need information on little children going to school and just going anywhere regardless. The government should honestly be taking more initiative action in protecting our privacy. We are in this so-called "free" country for a reason, and we should be given that right to our privacy. When it comes to people committing crimes, the government and police departments should be tracking those people and the people who surround them for potential suspects. The government should not be allowed to track and family getting out of their car in their driveway about to go into their house as seen in the Ted Talk. That is their home, their property, they shouldn't be getting surveillanced for that it is ridiculous. In order to protect ourselves from the invasion of privacy, we can do research as to what ways there are to keep things private. Also, read the privacy policies on apps and on other things in order to understand what data will be shared with the companies and what can be shared with the government.  We can also have a privacy block called a VPN on our devices in order to protect us a little bit more from an online invasion of privacy. Invasion of privacy goes from online to in-person and back around again in a full circle. All we can do is protect ourselves the best way we can by learning different ways to keep our information private and acting immediately because privacy is a very important part of the freedoms we have in this country and just us in life in general.