User:Aubree Leonard/privacy and surveillance
what are the risks in private entitles (corporations, non-profits, or individuals) freely selling personally identifiable data (like cell-phone records and locations)?
The sale of personal identifiable information by private entities carries a lot of risks:
Privacy Violations: Individuals have an inherent right to privacy, and when their personal data is sold or shared without their informed consent, it undermines this right. People often don't realize the extent to which their data is being collected or how it may be used.
Data Misuse: PII can be used maliciously or irresponsibly. For instance, companies could sell data to entities that engage in fraud, identity theft, or targeted harassment. This could include personal information like location, browsing habits, or health records.
Discrimination: When data is sold to third parties, it could be used for discriminatory practices. For example, advertisers might target vulnerable groups with predatory financial products, or insurance companies might use personal data to set discriminatory rates.
Security Risks: When companies sell or share PII, they increase the number of parties that have access to this sensitive data, raising the likelihood of data breaches or hacking incidents. These breaches can expose customers to serious risks like identity theft and financial loss.
Loss of Autonomy: As individuals’ data is sold to multiple parties, they lose control over how their information is used. This limits the autonomy people have in making informed decisions about where and how they share their personal details.
What are the risks in unchecked government surveillance of people's communications and movements?
Unchecked government surveillance raises numerous risks, both in terms of individual rights and the broader functioning of society:
Invasion of Privacy: Mass surveillance of people's communications, activities, and movements violates basic privacy rights. The government might track citizens without consent, compromising their autonomy in the digital age.
Chilling Effect on Free Speech: When people feel they are being watched, they may self-censor their thoughts, actions, and speech, even in private settings. This could undermine democratic engagement, particularly in political or social activism.
Abuse of Power: Without proper oversight, governments might use surveillance data to target specific groups based on race, religion, political affiliation, or other protected characteristics. This could lead to political repression, discrimination, or even persecution.
Erosion of Trust: When citizens become aware of or suspect that their government is monitoring them without cause, it can erode trust in both government institutions and the political system as a whole. This can create a climate of fear and mistrust.
Lack of Accountability: Unchecked surveillance without strict oversight mechanisms often leads to misuse or errors, where innocent people are caught up in surveillance programs. Without transparency or accountability, there’s no way to hold authorities responsible for improper surveillance or data misuse.
What does society gain (potentially or actually) from governments using surveillance technologies? Governments using surveillance technologies can offer some benefits to society, such as:
Safety and Security: Surveillance helps authorities catch criminals or prevent terrorist attacks by keeping an eye on public places and monitoring potential threats.
Better Response to Emergencies: In case of disasters, health crises (like a pandemic), or accidents, surveillance helps the government respond more quickly to protect people.
Crime Prevention: Knowing that they are being watched can discourage people from committing crimes, which might lower crime rates in the long run.
More Effective Policing: Surveillance allows law enforcement to track suspects, gather evidence, and solve crimes faster and more accurately.
Predicting Problems: With the right tools, the government can use surveillance data to predict where issues, like crime or violence, might happen and try to stop them before they occur.
What privacy rights do individuals have with respect to corporations? With respect to the government?
With Corporations: People have the right to control how companies use their personal data. Corporations need to ask for permission before they collect or use personal data like your name, address, or online activity. You can also ask companies to delete your data or see what they have about you.
Why? This is to protect people from companies using their information in ways they don't want, like selling it to third parties or using it unfairly.
With the Government: People also have privacy rights against the government. For example, the government can't just spy on you without a warrant or permission from a court. There are laws to make sure authorities don't abuse their power and invade people's private lives.
Why? These rights are there to prevent the government from overstepping its power and to make sure everyone is treated fairly. The government should not be able to monitor everything you do without a good reason.
What property rights do corporations have over data that they generate, even though that data might be used to identify a person? why?
Corporations have control over the data they collect (like user data from apps or websites), but they don’t “own” it in the same way they own a product. They can store, use, and sell the data, but they can’t freely do whatever they want with it, especially when it concerns personal information.
Why? Even though corporations collect the data, individuals still have rights to their personal information. Data protection laws ensure that people can control who gets access to their private details. Corporations are just the "keepers" of this data and need to follow strict rules about how they use it.
What makes surveillance by computer different from the kinds of surveillance we've seen before? Surveillance using computers and technology is different from traditional forms of surveillance in several ways:
Scale: Computers can collect a huge amount of data from many people all at once. Traditional surveillance, like a police officer watching a crowd, could only monitor a small group of people at a time.
Accuracy and Automation: Computers can use algorithms to quickly analyze data and spot patterns. For example, a computer might track someone's online activities and predict what they might do next, something humans couldn’t do without a lot of effort.
Invisible Tracking: In the past, surveillance was obvious (like security cameras or police patrols). Now, computer surveillance can be invisible. You might not even know that your phone or computer is being used to track you.
Real-Time Monitoring: Digital surveillance can happen instantly, for example, tracking your location through your phone right now. Traditional surveillance often involved watching or following people over time.
Combining Data: Computers can take information from many different places (like social media, shopping history, GPS, etc.) and combine them to create a complete profile of someone. This is harder for humans to do manually.