Technology and Privacy Issue - Case Study Example

Technology and the Privacy Issue INTRODUCTION In the contemporary business environment, business organizations are committed towards attaining greater competitive traction and success. In pursuit of success, business organizations are constantly involved in strengthening its capabilities and level of competencies. Correspondingly, business organizations are incorporating new and innovative technologies as a source for building their strengths to remain highly competitive in the market place and satisfy the needs of the customers in an efficient manner. Business organizations have incorporated new technologies for reducing cost of operation, attaining an increased level of competitiveness and business expansion (Dai 53-60; Kushwaha 1-15). The continuous advancement in information technology and communication (ICT) has offered business organizations with increased opportunities to success in the current volatile business environment. Business organizations irrespective of its size are currently identified to be taking up the opportunities provided by the constantly evolving technologies. These technologies have facilitated the business organizations to eliminate the short-term operating problems and attain the long term strategic goals efficiently. Currently business organizations, both government and private entities are extensively involved in the use of ICTs. The widespread use of ICTs can be seen in almost all sectors of the business, including banking sector, health sector and many other sectors (Dai 53-60). However, the phenomenon of globalization substantiated with digital convergence has led to the emergence of severe challenges and issues. In this regard, incorporation of ICTs have resulted in increasing complexities for business organizations as well as customers in the domain of social, legal and ethical issues. More importantly, the rapid development of ICTs and its adoption by business organizations is ascertained to have a profound impact on the privacy issue. Besides, the widespread access to social media has also challenged in the aspect of privacy. Nevertheless, certain laws can be seen to be formulated to maintain privacy yet several instances have been reported that have significant impact on the issue (Dai 53-60). THESIS STATEMENT The paper concentrates on the growing feature of technology and its use in the business world. It will stress on key laws protecting the privacy rights in the US It will explore the issues of privacy that are occurring due to the developing social media. It will also provide current case where privacy rights were violated and the consequences of these violations. BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY AND PRIVACY Nowadays, businesses are deeply influenced by the constantly evolving technologies and the use of ICTs can be seen to be widespread among the business organizations. The evolution of new and innovative technologies has resulted in profound changes in global production, business methods as well as consumption trend in and between the organizations and the customers. The implementation of ICTs technologies in the recent time has been enormous. Business organizations are currently recognized to be investing a considerable amount on ICTs, as driven by the goal to achieve increased profit margin, competitive traction, increased market share, better image, reduced operation costs and attaining flexibility in the business operation. It cannot be denied that implementation of ICTs and other technologies have simplified business processes to a large extent (Ruvinga and Zhou 45-50). Business organizations are implementing ICTs to share, disseminate and gather information as well as to communicate with customers and other interconnected networks. In addition, business organizations with the application of ICTs have been able to make quick and accurate decisions within the shortest possible time particularly due to the increased mobility. The implementation of ICTs has indeed facilitated business organizations to strengthen its supply chain network and deliver goods and services to end customers in a timely manner (Ruvinga and Zhou 45-50). The rapid explosion of ICTs has led to the unprecedented growth in the segment of electronic commerce. Business organizations using data mining technique are extensively involved in extracting different types of information related to customer purchasing behavior, income and their presences in order to deliver customized goods and/or services. In other words, technology in the current business environment can be seen to continuously invading the personal space. Nevertheless, the extensive use of personal information has given rise to privacy issue, which has been a prime concern for business organizations, policy makers as well as customers. In general, privacy is defined as “concealment of useful information assuming an economic value in transaction” (Zhan & Rajamani 101-108). The increasing concern with respect to the privacy issue has influenced the behavior of customers to a large extent. Accordingly, many people in the contemporary world are exhibiting their unwillingness to conduct online transactions primarily due to the risks associated with the personal information. In addition, the rapid advancement in the ICTs is inherited with several risks. It is evident that in the recent years, several incidents of privacy issue have taken place, which have further demotivated the people to reveal their confidence on business organizations engaged in offering goods and/or services online. The increasing number of hackers and the incidents of identity theft have grown to a significant extent, which have distorted the reputation of many organizations operating businesses through online mode. It is worth mentioning that currently, information is no more treated merely as personal assets, but it is considered as economic good. Today business is closely integrated with technology and it has been widely claimed that managing information security and privacy is the fiduciary responsibility of organizations that include both government and commercial enterprises. However, it has been argued that many organizations are under the engulf of current complex environment owing they are not able to address the complexities associated with the information security and privacy of vital customers, which has increased the security threat pertaining to the information fed by the customers. It has been argued that trust and confidence are the two most important criteria for building strong relationships with customers. However, inadequate information security has resulted in reduced customer confidence, which has radically deteriorated the online transaction. The rapid technological breakthrough and the increasing transaction over the internet have led to the emergence of one of the most apparent crimes of identity theft (Hedayati 11-12). Currently, business organizations and customers are significantly influenced by the act of identity theft. It has been observed that identify theft is increasing rapidly around the world. Identity theft in general is associated with the act of fraud that causes financial or other losses to individuals and enterprises. Identity theft is generally executed with the stolen information about a particular person in an online mode, which is then used to gain personal benefit (Hedayati 11-12). It is apparent that privacy issue is a major problem faced by businesses and societies in the contemporary world. In the present information age, the customers primarily have two major concerns regarding the issue of privacy. In this regards, the customers are mainly concerned with the unauthorized use of their personal information and the re-use of their personal information without their consent. The continuous advancement of technologies has further increased the debate on the issue of privacy. In this regard, it has been claimed that information about the customers or any other person used by the business for its purpose have favorable impact on business in many cases, but at the same time, it has the side effect of making this information vulnerable to several frauds. The significant concern towards the privacy issue has created a need for business organizations as well as policy makers to address this issue in the most effective manner. Besides, this issue is also determined to be important from the economic perspective of a nation. Correspondingly, business organizations incorporating ICTs on a large scale are advocated to implement adequate security measures in order to ensure privacy, confidentiality as well as integrity of the information gathered from different sources. Privacy has been the issue affecting the process of globalization as well as the ability of an organization to adopt innovation. Precisely stating, the complexities associated with the issue of privacy has forced business organizations to come up with effective personal information management process to reduce any uncertainties related to the breach of privacy and identity theft (Zhan & Rajamani 101-108). PRIVACY LAW Privacy law is often considered to be culturally based. Privacy is considered as the basic human right in the EU while it is considered as the pragmatic interest in the US. Nevertheless, the privacy policy and law has been ascertained to vary depending on the legal aspects of different nations. In the US, the legislative protection with respect to privacy can be identified in different laws that are directed towards government as well as private sector. In this regard, the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 was one of the first attempts made towards safeguarding the privacy rights of customers in the US directed towards the private sectors. On the other hand, the Privacy Act of 1974 was one of the earliest statutory privacy protections formulated against the misuse of personal information by the government organizations. In addition, Congress designed a wide variety of other legislative measures in order to protect the information privacy. Few major legislative measures enacted by Congress include ‘the Bank Secrecy Act’, ‘the Cable Communication Policy Act’, ‘the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act’, ‘the Computer Machine and Privacy Protection Act’, ‘the Electronic Communication Protection Act’, ‘the Electronic Fund Transfer Act’, ‘Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Street Act’, ‘the Right to Financial Privacy Act’ and ‘the Video Privacy protection Act’ among others. All these legislative measures were enacted with the aim of generating adequate awareness towards the issue of privacy and execute control over information gathering and surveillance. Nevertheless, these provisions are determined to limit the power of government to the degree these statues are operative (Nelson 259-269). In this regard, the Privacy Act of 1974 was enforced to safeguard the privacy rights of citizens by the government organizations to observe the rules in the use of private information. It has been ascertained that the primary purpose of this Act was to protect the interest of citizens with respect to information privacy by developing a code of fair and transparent information practices that clearly defined the duties owned by the government organizations towards an individual citizen of the nation regarding collection and dissemination of information. It has been recognized that the Act does not prohibits the collection or use of personal information of citizens by federal agencies, but it was directed towards exerting restrictions towards the abusive use of personal information. Fundamentally, the Act was designed to limit the disclosure of personal information and prohibited federal agencies from disclosing personal record without the consent of an individual citizen. In addition, the Act also delineated that information can be used without the consent of an individual when such information is used for legal purposes. However, it has been claimed that the Privacy protection Act of 1974 provides little protection against technology surveillance as well as information gathering by the government. In the similar context, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is also ascertained to face with similar contentions. It is worth mention that this Act precludes the illegal collection of information in the form that include oral, wire or electronic communication. The Act not only considers the procurement of information illegally, but it also precludes the distribution of information in an unauthorized manner. As far, the Privacy protection laws are concerned with the private sector in the USA. It can be determined that the laws safeguarding privacy in the case of the private sector is still lagged behind when compared to the European countries (Nelson 259-269). Notably, in the US, the privacy of online customers is protected by the Child Online Privacy Protection Act, which was enforced in the year 1998. This Act is the first legislative measure of the government towards protecting the privacy rights of individuals involved in online business traction or any other activities conducted over the network. In the US, the protection of online customers is generally based on the criteria of self-regulation embraced by the industry. Besides, in the legislative measures, certain guidelines have been adopted to protect the information privacy. In this regard, Online Privacy Alliance (OPA) designed in the year 1986 states certain imperative guidelines that secure the privacy rights of an individual in the domain of businesses (Nelson 259-269). IMPACT OF GROWING SOCIAL MEDIA ON PRIVACY The evolution of internet has provided people with the opportunity to establish contact and communicate with others at reduced costs. In the contemporary era, internet is omnipresent and almost all individuals have the access to it. Over the years, development has been observed in social media relating to social networking sites, e-mails, blogs and post, which have become widely popular amid the general public as well as business personnel. In this regard, social networks are considered as intricate information system that promotes rich information flow. However, in the current era of digitalization, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become an integral part of the present lifestyle of people. On the other hand, business organizations are using social media particularly e-mails and social networking sites for various purposes including marketing and communicating with customers regarding its product and/or services. Nevertheless, the widespread use of social networking sites has created challenges of privacy (Hasib 1-5). In the recent years, there has been unprecedented growth in the users of social networking sites. It has been observed that currently billions of users across the world uses social media for varying purposes. Due to this fact, social networking sites are argued to store large volume of sensitive as well as private information. This information is generally private and is intended towards specific audience only. It has been observed that the increasing popularity of social networking sites not only attracts honest and faithful users but at the same time, these social networking sites involve users with adverse interest. Owing to this, social networking sites are argued to be vulnerable to privacy infringement risks. Thus, it has been argued that privacy protection of the users of social networking sites is of paramount importance as the illegal disclosure of the same is argued to have serious consequences. It has been claimed that the relationships between the social networking sites and privacy is often very subtle. The social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter offers users to customize profiles by feeding personal information. In this regard, it has been observed that the information disclosed in the social networking sites is vulnerable to be exploited by third parties making the aspect of privacy under risks. Besides, several challenges pertaining to privacy has been reported in the recent years with the use of social networking sites. Notably, several risks have been identified with respect to the growing use of social networking sites in the present era. In this regard few common challenges that have been spurred due to the widespread use of social networking sites include identity theft, Profile cloning, profile porting, secondary data collection, phishing, and communication tracking among others (Hasib 1-5). Identity Theft. One of the major challenges associated with the growing use of social networking sites is associated with the issue of identity theft. In this regard, it has been observed that in certain circumstances, attackers or even service providers gain unauthorized identification of users and can use personal information to communicate with friends and other listed in the profile of the authentic user. In addition, the consequences of identity theft in certain instances can cause huge financial losses. Besides, attackers are also recognized to use the information gained through social networking sites for conducting malicious activities of fraud (Hasib 1-5; Hedayati 11-12). Profile Cloning. Profile cloning is another common act, which can also be related with the creation of a clone for acquiring trust and confidence of other users on the social networking sites. The individuals involved in such activities are also identified to use the clone account for building relationships with others and extracting information from them, which they can used for committing various illegal activities such as blackmailing or causing damage to authentic users (Hasib 1-5). Profile Porting. In addition to above stated threats due to the growing use of social media, profile porting can be considered to impose similar threat to that of profile cloning. In this regard, attackers make use of the identity of the authentic users and create account on social networking sites to execute their malicious interest fraud (Hasib 1-5). Secondary Data Collection. Users are often involved in publishing data over the social networking sites. It is possible for the attackers to easily acquire the security number of the users on the social networking sites, which generally involves the key information necessary for accessing the social site account of the authentic users. In circumstances, where the attackers have been successful in gaining unauthorized access to the users account, the attackers may use the available information of criminal activities or taking the advantages of the information in an adverse manner (Hasib 1-5). Communication Tracking. Communication tracking is another major threat imposed by the extensive use of social networking sites. In this regard, an individual with malicious intention can track the communication process of the authentic users and can acquire knowledge regarding the parties involved in the conversation fraud (Hasib 1-5). CASE OF PRIVACY VIOLATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Privacy breach in the recent years has become a common phenomenon. Despite of the legislative measures and guidelines of privacy protection, there have been increased incidents of privacy violation. During the year 2013, several incidents of privacy breach were reported in the US. The most debated controversy surrounding the privacy violation issue was the case of The National Security Agency (NSA). It was reported that during the year 2013, the NSA has broken privacy governing protocol for thousands of times. Notably, most of the privacy infringement was reported with respect to the unauthorized surveillance of American citizens, which is firmly restricted under the rules governing the privacy protection in the US. The incident involved significant breach of privacy law, which was followed by the interception of large number of e-mails and telephone calls. It was reported that the privacy violation committed by the NSA was predominately a misuse of authority and power. It was further stated that the NSA was using illegal process to collect information and manage communication. During the corresponding year of 2012, it was reported that the NSA has breached the privacy law for 2,776, which involved unauthorized collection, storage, as well as distribution of information that were legally protected. Claims were made that most of the incidents of privacy breach were unintended. Besides, it was appealed that most of the activities conducted by NSA were based on technology and hence, the inability of these technologies to classify the users has resulted in the breach of the privacy laws (Goodman and Juan, “NSA Violated Surveillance Rules Thousands of Times, Audit Finds”). As the result of this volition, significant dissatisfaction was reported amid the US citizens. The citizens also reported that the action of NSA was an incident of carelessness and the use of extraordinary power to influence the American citizens. No severe consequences were reported due to the result of privacy violation, but the issue has emerged as a topic of constant contention. It has been further reported that such action of the NSA would further lead to severe consequences amid the US. Thus, from the above case example, it can be stated that not only the private enterprises but also the government agencies are also extensively involved in breaching privacy policy. In addition, it can be stated that more rigid policies are required to be formulated in order to curb the growing privacy breach incidents in the US (Goodman and Juan, “NSA Violated Surveillance Rules Thousands of Times, Audit Finds”). CONCLUSION From the foregoing discussion, it has been comprehended that in the recent years, business organizations have significantly benefitted with the incorporation of wide range of new and innovative technologies. Business organizations are identified to make considerable investment in acquiring advanced technology to attain greater competitive advantages as well as increase their market share and profit margin. However, the widespread use of technologies in the business domain, particularly the ICTs have created certain imperative challenges for the businesses, policy makers as well as customers or the users. In this regard, it has been determined that the intensity of privacy violation can range from nominal to massive extent in certain circumstances. Additionally, the privacy issue is argued to accompany financial as well as reputation losses. However, it has been determined that over the years, several laws and policies have been formulated in the UN to curb the issue of privacy. The increasing trend of electronic commerce along with extensive use of social networking sites have indeed raised the level of complexities associated with the data collection as well as management of personal information. Nowadays, government of different countries can be identified to be aware of the challenges imposed by such trends and are involving addressing with different privacy laws and policies. In this regard, prominent laws have been enacted in the US to protect the privacy of an individual that includes the Bank Secrecy Act, The Cable Communication Policy Act, The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, The Computer Machine And Privacy Protection Act and the Video Privacy protection Act among others. It has been argued that these laws also guarantees the protection of privacy but are limited to legal boundaries only. In addition, many experts have revealed their firm dissatisfaction against the efficiency of these laws. At the same timer, limited legislative measures have been identified in the context of private sector with respect to the privacy in the US. At the same time, it has been argued that the privacy laws in the US are not at par level when compared to that of the European countries. Accordingly, more efforts are identified to be made in the area of strengthening the privacy policies as well as curtailing the consequences of privacy breach in the US. In addition, the growing popularity and use of social networking sites has been identified to impose significant risks for the users of the social networking sites. Since the evolution of the internet, many social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been identified to develop, which have been successful in attracting billions of customers. However, it cannot be denied that the increasing use of social networking sites has not only provided opportunities but has also imposed radical challenges. In this regard, few of the challenges associated with the growing use of social networking sites include identity theft, profile cloning, profile porting, secondary data collection, phishing and communication tracking among others. Works Cited Dai, Wai. “The Impact of emerging technologies on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)”. Journal of Business system, Governance and Ethics 4.4 (2009): 53-60. Print. Goodman, Amy and Juan Gonzalez. NSA Violated Surveillance Rules Thousands Of Times, Audit Finds. 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2014. Hasib, Abdullah Al. “Threats of Online Social Networks”. Helsinki University of Technology (2008): 1-5. Print. Hedayati, Ali. “An analysis of identity theft: Motives, Related Frauds, Techniques and Prevention”. Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution 4.1 (2012):11-12. Print. Kushwaha, Gyaneshwar Singh. “Competitive Advantage through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Enabled Supply Chain Management Practices”. International Journal of Enterprise Computing and Business Systems Business Systems 1.2 (2011): 1-15. Print. Nelson, Lisa. “Privacy and Technology: Reconsidering a Crucial Public Policy Debate in the Post-September 11 Era”. Public Administration Review 64.3 (2004): 259-269. Print. Ruvinga, Caroline and Munyaradzi Zhou. “Effective utilisation of ICT is the key to Business success: Case Study of SMEs in Zimbabwe”. IOSR Journal of Computer Engineering 16.1 (2014): 45-50. Print. Zhan, Justin and Vaidyanathan Rajamani. “The Economics of Privacy”. International Journal of Security and Applications 2.3 (2008): 101-108. Read More