Technologies and Citizens Privacy - Research Paper Example

? Technologies and Citizens Privacy Technologies and Citizens Privacy With the rise of technologies such as the Internet, mobile computing, and search engines the privacy of the citizens can no longer be guaranteed. The government has the means and power to sniff through unsuspecting people e-mails while at the same time tapping into their phone conversations. Extensive research has shown that with people shifting to this digital era, the government and other institutions have the ability to construct means and manage mechanism that could hack into the government service relationships servers and, thus, violating the public privacy (Bhunia, 2006). With doing away of paper based services people store their data in computers. Spy software and network sniffing programs that are readily available in the Internet have aided people in violating other people privacy. People, thus, need to be able to protect their network securities and computers from any form of intrusion. This calls for risk management when it comes to people’s personal information (Lindsay & Thomson, 2005). The government and business agencies need to find new ways and means that can protect people’s identity and privacy when delivering or offering services. Form a citizen’s point of view, it is clear that online and other forms of digital transactions are vulnerable to breach of securities (Davenport, 2006). Citizens lack proper knowledge to understand what happens when their identity is stored in the online government systems and other businesses. Through the use of spy software, a person can be tracked wherever and whenever he or she uses credit cards. There is the need for citizens to be educated on how to protect their personal information (Davenport, 2006). Advantages and Disadvantages of the Public Being Able to Access Information All forms of technological developments do come with their own issues biased on both the negative and positive sides. The issue of technology has brought the Internet age which has been having great importance in human lives and by so doing being able to enhance human interaction and business operations (Bhunia, 2006). However, the issue of insecurity has as well been experienced and which is in need of tentative analysis towards curbing all the issues of insecurity which comes as a result. The issue of network security is something which has been given the necessary concern and establishment by nations as well as organizations. Due to this kind of development, the network security is able to change the focus of security groups or security blueprint over the past few years. With the public is able to access information, there is a need to audit the systems that host the information. There are few things that an information security auditor needs to be previewed before carrying out an audit of the information security data centers. The auditor needs to be well informed about the organization and how it conducts its sensitive business activities (Lindsay & Thomson, 2005). This will immensely help when it comes to performing a data or information center assessment. Every organization should have a data center and its main objective should be to align the data center actions with the goals of the organization. At the same time it should be able to preserve the safety and integrity of the public data and information in the data centers. Prior to conducting the audit process, the following are some of the things that an information security auditor needs to do: meet with the IT management and carry out a review of its department organizational structure, conduct a review of the job description of all the employees at the data center, know all the application and operating systems in use at the data centers, review the data centers emergency recovery plans, and evaluate the IT departments or organizations policies and procedures when it comes to handling their data centers (Davenport, 2006). Protecting Information The issue of network security has become a new form of development which can effectively change the focus of security in majority of the organizations today. The issue of network security is something which can have great impact on any given organization and the reason it is something which should be adequately addressed. In that case, security groups have been adopted whose job is in monitoring any form of intrusions and which might end up compromising the business and putting the operations of such a business or organization at stake (Lindsay & Thomson, 2005). Over the past few years, the security blueprint has been able to change so that the focus does as well incorporate the network security provision. This is a new kind of security provision through which technological knowledge and tools have to be incorporated and thus change the mode of performance. In any given public, there are many issues and operations which are done through connected networks and which should be safeguarded to avoid any damages and losses on the persons involved (Davenport, 2006). This is so because such kind of a loss can have very great impacts on the organization, thus, compromising its future developments. As more and more technological breakthroughs continue to be invented, similar infiltrations shall be expected and that shall be the case for the coming years as well. This enabled to integrate the use of commoditized controls which should function correctly other engaging in other forms of risks management systems. Federal Law With the current federal cybercrime laws (Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2008), it is required that a prosecutor needs to prove that the illegal activity caused through the use of the computer has caused a damage of a minimum of $5, 000. This is required before they can bring any charges for unauthorized access to the computer. With this new law it has been able to do away with this requirement. It is worth to point out that with the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2008 it makes it a felony during a period of 1 year for one to damage ten or more protected computers. These computers should be in use by the federal government or other financial institutions. This directs the US sentencing commission to review the guidelines, hence, considering the increase of the penalties to those convicted for identity theft, computer fraud or breaking into any computer systems (Carmen, 2006). Crimes against Property Under property issue, there can be two modes which is a crime against either real or personal property. With real property, crime entails to ownership of land which includes everything else which has been attached to it. On the other hand, crime against personal property shall be able to define everything which the law has been able to grant ownership to (Lindsay & Thomson, 2005). There are also a number of ways through which acquisition of title to human property should be defined. For instance, all property rights should be bought for at least a price, acquired either as a gift and also owned through forms of inheritance, something which is commonly adopted in many societies (Bhunia, 2006). Regarding all these issues on property, ownership should be something important whenever it comes to all forms of criminal law. Some fundamental issues and elements have to be considered so as to order arrest the defendant. At all cost, theft does require the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that such a defendant had intended to deprive the property owner such property Effectiveness of Electronic Law There is some risk management to be done when it comes to the electronic law. It tends to differ with security depending on the modalities which are put in place and how they are operated. Risks are forms of occurrences which might come as a result due to malfunction of a system, or due to some kind of threat which is known to exist. This means that, any process of risk management is the act of making sure that some foreseen happening has been solved before it happens (Carmen, 2006). For instance, some smokers within an industry are a true risk which can eventually cause fire. This is, thus, an indication that one can see a risk which might cause disaster in the business, and, therefore, management is the auditing and procedural analysis of such risks after which they end up being addressed before they happen to cause damages on the business. Risk management is usually done to prevent the happening of some predictable kind of disaster (Carmen, 2006). On the other hand, security is more an integrity in the systems within a given premise or place in making sure that everything is in order and any kind of intrusion is dealt with before it is able to cause any kind of damage. Security is maintained all through in ensuring that everything runs in order. Security is that a practice or a provision which, once has been adopted, should be held for as long as a business or organization exists. Any piece of technological development comes in handy and, thus, is able to promote performance of organizations. The technological developments have enabled organized to adopt new materials and techniques which have as well led to an improvement in the kind of security being offered. References Bhunia, C. (2006). Information Technology Network and Internet. New York: New Age International Publishers. Carmen, D. (2006). Criminal Procedure: Law and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davenport, H. (2006) Reengineering Revisited. Computerworld Management. 12(2), 34-46. Lindsay, J., & Thomson, G. (2005). Mental Health and Scots Law in Practice. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Read More