Characteristics of Information Privacy - Literature review Example

Running Head: Information Privacy Information Privacy Name Course Lecture Date Introduction The internet brings up many issues of information privacy. Privacy over the internet is now a common news item with many questioning the right of internet companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter to store and use personal information. Internet social networks and email accounts have also been subjected to hacking, therefore, violating the privacy of many individuals. The speed and ease of capturing and storing information have increased dramatically; this has greatly magnified and distorted existing privacy problems. Stalking has taken a new dimension, and people have to be afraid of cyber stalkers who can be anywhere in the world. Through cyber surveillance, spies can obtain footage of people’s homes without ever having to step into their houses. Marketing is now easier as individual preferences and tastes can be learned from data mined from their browsing history. But how ethical is the collection and use of private information obtained over the internet? Privacy is a reference to the amount of information about an individual that they are not ready to publicise. While humans have an intrinsic desire to communicate, they also desire to keep some information about themselves private. While what is considered private varies from one community or culture to another, all human beings expect the line to be drawn between the personal, private and public realms (Solove, 2004). While overall technology is beneficial to the human race, when used inappropriately it can destroy the privacy of individuals. Privacy is a human right that most governments around the world purport to protect. The consequences of invasion of privacy are real in a person’s life and confront them for the rest of their lives. Privacy is closely associated to the amount of freedom an individual enjoys. Characteristics of Privacy Privacy in essence is the right to protect ourselves from intrusion by others. Individuals have the right to protect their homes, property from outside intrusion. In regard to the internet, privacy is concerned with control over individual information. It means the right not to be spied upon by cameras and the rights not to have their personal information stored or appropriated (Solove, 2007). According to Otto, Antón and Baumer (2007), all information about a person belongs to them, and they should, therefore, control its usage. They should determine how it is communicated or stored. However, the privacy situation over the internet is far from ideal. Individual information is collected by various internet companies and used without their knowledge or consent. Waiting to prosecute breaches of privacy cannot do any good to individuals whose privacy has been affected. Privacy has become so hard to maintain due to fast advancing technology and limited legal protection (Solove, 2007). Unfortunately, breaches of privacy are irreparable. Since breaches are irreparable protection of privacy is critical on the internet. Once details of one’s private life are exposed no amount of crisis control can ever give back their privacy. For example, a person whose HIV status is made public can never recover the privacy of his health status (Solove, 2007). The devastating consequences of such divulgence of sensitive information can even lead a person to commit suicide. Controversial Collection of Private Information A lot of controversy surrounds the collection of personal information by internet companies and other businesses. Leading internet companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace among others are home to huge troves of personal information. One begs to question whether all this information is collected ethically, and if so, is it used for the purpose the user gave it up for (Steel and Fowler, 2010). Collection of personal information starts once a person registers as a user of the internet services. Registration information includes date of birth, name, location, phone number among others. However, it might be argued that the internet companies do not need all this information for users to access their services, then why do they ask for it? Web companies also gather private information by tracking the web browsing session of users. The biggest web companies led by Google have sophisticated technology that they use to track users as they move from site to site (Zimmer, 2008). Can users browse the internet privately? Most users wish to browse the internet anonymously without their usage being tracked. However, most web companies do not honour the wishes of users as this threatens their ad revenue. Most users of the internet use search engines to navigate to the pages they want to visit. However, most search engines retain information about the user including IP addresses, information searched for, common search terms (Thuraisingham, 2002). Using this information, search engines tailor advertisements that target a particular user. While search engines argue that it is necessary to retain personal information in order to enhance their services, they have been accused of retaining private information for completely different reasons. Some search Engines retain private information for over 12 months well above the time they need to keep the information for the service enhancements (Evans, 2009). Search engines have been accused of selling private browsing information to third parties who use it mainly for advertising purposes. Nowadays, most users use the same company for search services and email. Thus, it is easier for the company to connect the browsing information with you email and personal identifiable information. One of the most controversial aspects of internet privacy is the use of cookies. Websites deposit pieces of information about the user's visit to a website on the user’s hard disk (Evans, 2009). These pieces of information are referred to as cookies and store information such as login, user preferences among others (Millett, Friedman and Felten, 2001). Cookies, therefore, enable websites to enhance user experience on return visits. The use of first-party cookies enhance the experience of users on return visits, alternatively they are used to make advertising offers. However, third-party cookies are mired in controversy as they enable advertising clearinghouses collect and communicate private web usage data to marketers. Third party cookies deliver customized ads to a user by tracking their online history (Millett, Friedman and Felten, 2001). While cookies are a useful technology tool in the delivery of web services, they remain a great threat to individual privacy when using the internet. Controversial Reuse of personal information in Social Networks As seen earlier a person retains the right to determine how information about him should be used by any organization he allows collect this information. However, this basic right to privacy is violated by many web companies that reuse information without the consent or knowledge of users (Steel and Fowler, 2010). The risk of inappropriate reuse of personal information is far greater in online social networks. While social networks are important tools for building relationships and connections they also set the stage for violations of privacy that can destroy people’s lives. For example, pictures posted on social networks can be downloaded by both friends and people who may use them maliciously. It is very hard for users of social networks to control the reuse of posted information. There are numerous cases of people’s Twitter and Facebook posts being used as news stories while news organizations should not have access to people’s personal posts. Social networks also provide rich sources of information for people who are interested in an individual. Identity thieves, government agents, stalkers, debt collectors can gather information about a person through social network. Gross and Acquisti (2005) argues that social networks have an obligation to protect personal information in people social network profiles. It falls upon them to ensure as much as possible that the information entrusted to them is not accessible to just about anyone. Do Governments have rights to use private information? In some instances, Governments can legally collect and access private information about individuals on the internet and other communication media (Mell, 2002). Even though, legally these acts constitute spying on individuals and are a clear violation of individual liberties. In most nations any accesses to private information by government agents require the express authority of courts (Mell, 2002). The government is only given access if it can show that the people being spied on are terrorist or significant threats to the security of the nation. However, illegal violation by governments of individual privacy as regard internet data is extremely common. The PRISM controversy involving the US government and several global internet companies is a striking example. Prism became public knowledge in when Edward Snowden exposed the largest internet surveillance program ever initiated (Nolan, 2013). Snowden had to flee the US after exposing the scandal but was hailed by a hero who fought for individual liberty. According to Nolan (2013), Prism is a surveillance program that collects internet data from major online companies. He asserts that major online companies are corporate partners with the NSA and thus the intelligence body can collect the emails, files, photos and posts of people using Google, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo and Apple networks. Snowden argues that the NSA wanted to access, track and record virtually every activity on the internet. A report by Nolan (2013) shows that the NSA built a massive data centre where it intended to store the information collected in the surveillance program. Nolan (2013) criticizes the major tech companies entrusted by their users with their personal information, but end up giving access to this information to government spy agencies. But do the companies have a choice? According to Nolan (2013), most internet companies, were bullied into co-operation with the NSA. Microsoft joined the surveillance program in 2007 while Apple was forced to share personal information with the NSA in 2012. Nolan (2013) shows that some companies had resisted attempts by the NSA to access the private information of their users but were ordered by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to comply. However, Google, Apple and Facebook have denied offering the NSA free access to private information in their possession (Nolan, 2013). The Tech giants have been accused of offering the NSA access to their servers that are located in the United States. The companies responded to accusation by the press by saying that they only offer private data in case of specific courts order requesting for the data. In contrast, the Obama administration has stated that the surveillance program is legal as it has been approved by congress (McCarthy, 2013). Security vs. Privacy When Obama was asked to respond to the Prism allegations, he denied that the US government was monitoring internet communication. However, he cautioned that 100 per cent security could not be achieved without a compromise of privacy (McCarthy, 2013). In effect, Obama’s statement legitimised NSA’s internet monitoring activities and shows the US government is ready to sacrifice privacy over security. Furthermore, the NSA argued that the Prism programme does not target US citizens but rather foreigners (McCarthy, 2013). Is it ethical for the US congress to purport to confer rights to the NSA to violate the privacy rights of foreigners? The argument that the NSA does not spy on US citizens is fronted as if the privacy of billions of other internet users around the world does not matter. Internet companies like Facebook, yahoo, Google, and Microsoft have also failed their worldwide users by allowing the NSA to compromise their privacy. Any security concerns that force internet companies to share private information should be closely related to the community’s security. Subjecting Australian internet users to monitoring by US state agencies for the sake of US internal security makes little sense. Therefore, security should not be an excuse for governments to trample the privacy rights of users regardless of whether they are US citizens or not. Conclusion Privacy of information communicated over the internet is a major issue in contemporary society. Although the issue of privacy is not new, the speed and ease of capturing and storing information have greatly magnified and distorted existing privacy problems. Privacy is a basic human right which directly bears on the dignity of an individual. Loss of privacy has a devastating loss on the individual; one cannot recover from the associated loss of dignity that occurs as a result of a breach of privacy. Despite these concerns, internet companies continue to collect individual private information. Many require people to provide sensitive personal details while registering for services. In effect, malicious individuals can obtain information such as residence, date of birth and location from the internet companies. Others track the movement of individuals from website to website during browsing session and use the information to deliver advertising. Worse there are unethical companies who track user browsing information and sell it to advertisers. Such collection and use of user's information is a practice that violates individual privacy and should stop immediately. However, most internet companies have resisted attempts to allow users browse the web anonymously fearing loss of advertisement revenue. The argument that privacy has to be compromised for the sake of national security is valid in some cases. However, such invasion of public space must occur with the limits of the law and should be done ethically. Internet companies are under ethical obligation to their users to deny government agencies access to private information entrusted to their care. Such access should only be granted under the express direction of courts. Retrogressive Legislations like Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which allow US federal agencies to monitor the internet communication of foreigners and thus violate their privacy does not have a place in modern society. Security should not be used as an excuse for governments to trample the privacy rights of users. References Bélanger, F., & Crossler, R. E. (2011). Privacy in the digital age: a review of information privacy research in information systems. MIS quarterly, 35(4), 1017-1042. Best, S. J., Krueger, B. S., & Ladewig, J. (2006). Privacy in the information age. Public Opinion Quarterly, 70(3), 375-401. Caftori, N., & Teicher, M. S. (2002). Information privacy issues in the information age. In Proceedings of the Cork, Ireland informing science 2002 conference. Evans, D. S. (2009). The online advertising industry: Economics, evolution, and privacy. The journal of economic perspectives, 37-60. Gross, R., & Acquisti, A. (2005, November). Information revelation and privacy in online social networks. In Proceedings of the 2005 ACM workshop on Privacy in the electronic society (pp. 71-80). ACM. McCarthy, T (June 7, 2013).Obama defends secret NSA surveillance programs - as it happened. The Guardian (online). Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/07/obama-administration-nsa-prism-revelations-live accessed 16 September 2014 Mell, P. (2002). Big Brother at the door: Balancing national security with privacy under the USA PATRIOT Act. Denv. UL Rev., 80, 375. Millett, L. I., Friedman, B., & Felten, E. (2001, March). Cookies and web browser design: toward realizing informed consent online. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 46-52). ACM. Nolan, S. (June 8, 2013). Revealed: Google and Facebook DID allow NSA access to data and were in talks to set up 'spying rooms' despite denials by Zuckerberg and Page over PRISM project. 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