Technology eroding your privacy

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Technology is an essential component in our lives and many strive to have the most up-to-date gadgets, but innovation comes at the price of privacy.

As technology continues to advance we see breakthroughs in the medical field, communication, convenient services, energy efficiency and many other things which contribute to making our lives easier.

But where do we draw the line between exchanging intimacy for technological privileges?

Companies like Google collect information from people’s profiles and online activity for reasons such as improvement of services or targeted advertising.

According to Google’s privacy policy, you are trusting the company with your information by using its services.

Google collects data based on user activity including:

  • Search Terms
  • Watched Videos on YouTube
  • Activity on third-party sites using Google services
  • Voice and audio information when using Google Home and audio features
  • Communicating or sharing content with other people
  • Information about apps and devices using Google services
  • Information about locations from which a device is operated

It’s not a coincidence when ads relate to something you consider purchasing. 

For example, if I’m searching for a new car to buy online, ads about car sales will pop up because anything you put into Google’s search engine is being tracked.

I’m skeptical about using Google as a search engine because of this.

Google can track how you interact with ads. I don’t even need to click on an ad, my behavior is already being monitored when I roll the mouse over one.

Your phone number and payment information can also be collected if you choose to include them in your account profile.

Google can even use information about you found in public sources for its search engine to index if anyone is searching for your name.

There are circumstances where the company can share information without your consent, one of which is for legal purposes upon request of government agencies. If I happen to find myself in a court of law, information I’ve posted online could be used against me.

These practices are helpful for quickly finding a product through ads or getting yourself out there to advance your career.

However, your data is made publicly available for anyone to see, including stalkers and hackers. I have the option to control how much information can be collected, but this limits my options for using services.

Voice assistants are another technological privilege which challenges our intimacy.

With voice assistants you can control the lights in your home, play music and get answers to questions just by using your voice.

These assistants can be helpful for the elderly who have trouble getting to a light switch, but they also record your requests and send them to companies’ data centers.

The reason for this is to help the assistants recognize your voice and improve its artificial intelligence to effectively complete the user’s requests.

I’m tempted to use these assistants, but I find myself unsettled at the fact my voice can be recorded and sent to a data center.

With Google Assistant, at least I have the option to delete my recordings and not let the assistant record my voice.

With other assistants like Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana I don’t have much of a choice.

Either I allow these assistants to recognize my voice or I don’t use them at all. You can try this with Cortana on Windows 10, I already have.

These services challenge our privacy now, but future technologies could take it a step further in invading our intimacy. In 2013 Google launched Google Glass, a pair of smart glasses you can  use to do things like take pictures or find directions.

It’s true this gadget failed to take off after its release, but this doesn’t mean companies have stopped developing similar products. In 2016, Samsung obtained a patent in South Korea for smart contact lenses with built-in cameras, according to Samsung-focused blog SamMobile.

With these lenses anyone can snap a photo of me and I wouldn’t even know it.

These technologies and services may collect our data and threaten our privacy, but we’re also responsible for unknowingly giving our consent.

When we download an app or subscribe to a service, most of us want to use the features right away and don’t bother to read the terms of service or privacy policy.

There may be a few people who are aware of these policies but choose to use a service because they may not have many options.

The tendencies of people to not read the policies and unknowingly agree to the terms of service leads companies to believe that we are fine with giving them our consent to use our information.

How long will it take before we discuss how much we want technology to be a part of our lives?

I don’t see the answer to this question anytime soon.