Insider
Media and Technology
Who’s watching us?
Ever wondered where your information goes, who has access
to it and what it is being used for? Is anything really kept pri-
vate anymore? Should we be concerned? Olivia Larkin
Social media, the internet
and mobile phones present
benefits and pitfalls. Today
so much of our modern
lives is lived, recorded,
registered, saved on online
devices or platforms. Our
generation will happily set
up our personal profiles,
accept cookies, reveal our
friendship
group,
our
achievements and our most
embarrassing moments for
that matter on Facebook,
Snapchat, Instagram and so
on, but do we really under-
stand who has access to
our data and for what pur-
pose they might use it?
How many times in the last
few years have we heard
stories about email ac-
counts being hacked? Does
anyone remember that 145
million Americans had
their data accessed when
US credit ratings agency
Equifax was hacked? Not a
small number, that. We
store so much sensitive
data with so many different
companies online – ad-
dresses, dates of birth,
credit card numbers etc and
that is only the more obvi-
ous stuff. What’s more we
think nothing of it and will
quite happily register on a
new, previously untested
website. What do we really
know of the site’s security
systems and what have we
given consent to? In truth, we
know very little and we forego
our concerns because we have
become accustomed to operat-
ing this way and moreover, we
like the convenience.
A few decades back one par-
ticular branch of marketing
focused on demographic pro-
filing. At this time, in a pre-
internet world, best guesses
were made about people’s
habits based on their post-
codes and projections made on
their earnings or lifestyle
based on the relative affluence
of the area. Marketeers pitched
to a stereotype not a specific
individual. Now that has all
changed as we readily hand
“The time
has come
to recog-
nise that
privacy is
just an il-
lusion”
-
Andreas
Weigend
over details about our-
selves by placing aspects
of our life online for all
to see. It is now possible
for companies to build
very strong profiles of us
by our activity and then
to target us accordingly. I
still find myself surprised
by how advertisements
on certain websites adjust
to show me pictures of
items I may have been
considering purchasing a
few moments ago. Simp-
ly put, we have all grown
to accept that aspects of
our browsing history are
tracked and utilised.
Companies
The College magazine online: sixthformmag.blogspot.co.uk
can
make