Privacy In The Digital Age: Concerns And Solutions

The Concept of Privacy

Discuss about the IT Profession and Ethics for Journalism ethics and Public.

Privacy is the right of an individual or a group to make themselves secluded and express themselves and their information selectively. The limitations and boundaries of the content of what is private vary among various cultures and individuals have common themes. If something is personal, it generally means that it is very sensitive to them. The term privacy partially covers confidentiality, which can include concepts of proper use, protection of information (Iggers, 2018). Privacy can be sacrificed voluntarily, in exchange for perceived benefits and often with certain risks and losses, but there it’s a very strategic view of relationships between humans. The idea of individual privacy is a modern concept mainly associated with a western world like the British and North America in general and was virtually not known to many cultures. In many cultures, they realize the right of a person to entitle certain areas of their private information from a larger group of people for example; closing door to one’s room.

Digital privacy is a social concern. For instance, TED talk by Eric Berlow and Sean Gourley cast a shadow over the privacy issues of cloud storage and online media. The concern of privacy of digital information in many pretexts is specifically related to information regarding personal identity shared over online networks (Fisher, 2016). The cryptographic software’s to avoid harassment and prosecution while sharing information over networks is related to crypto-anarchism which is intending to safeguard individuals from government mass surveillance. Confidential information and data collected by people are at the core value. There is a limit on power whether it be the government or private sector companies. Digital techniques such as phones or the internet provider for the new opportunities to expose truths and mobilize and engage audiences. Access to such technologies can play an important role in holding government agencies accountable. When it is used to collect information about activities and impacts support to participate in civic freedom of expression. The issue is that it has become easier and cheaper to use, and more unclear. There are matters of concern about who owns the information when it was uploaded on the internet and there is a confusion regarding the default settings and there is also the issue of whether the person is able to control the sensitive data they have. The privacy technologies have implications for everyone but are generally useless for people who use it for corruption and malpractices (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen and Korhonen, 2015).

Issues Related to Digital Privacy

The digital privacy of Australians ended in 2015. On that day the country’s entire communication networks were transformed into a scrutinizing arm of minimum 21 executive governments authorities. The electronically generated data and information over landline phones or text messages, emails, and GPS information were retained mandatorily by Australian telecoms and ISPs. Law enforcement agencies had an immediate and warrantless access to all internet metadata necessary by the law (Gunn, 2017). There was no sunset clause in the government legislation. The service providers were to keep it a secret from the agency looking for access to the metadata and the personal identity of a target. People were asked by the Federal Parliament that whether this organisation of admission of agency is significant for nationwide safekeeping at a tension like jihadi recruitment or the war on terror. But in a place of terror threat, it’s the system that is ill-equipped to catch terrorists. Law enforcement and security access to metadata override privacy are in contention worldwide. Privacy advocates believe that issues related to the new regime are needed due to systematic storage of massive information which can leave an individual’s privacy exposed. Short life without phone or PC they have no option but to leave a trail of the last two years. The surveillance tax makes them pay a massive amount of on-going systems work (Tolk and Ören, 2017). And there is also concern among small providers regarding what is required of them.

Internet of things was the disaster waiting to happen. It’s dangerous because it’s not true. There are many software problems which are inherent of the software design and were originally implemented. And trying to make the software more reliable and secure. Such drawbacks can become even worse when the programs should address the backward compatibility to the previous versions.  If that’s the case, it’s not easy to start afresh and the results will inherit flaws which might be avoided. Windows for example despite the various releases, it assumes that the programs can be altered as well as the OS. That’s a fundamental architectural flaw which has lack of security. Even when there are stability problems the software can become more complex and less predictable. Theoretically speaking software is predictable. However, it can become less deterministic as it becomes complex. This limitation is often acute when multiple complex systems interact with each other like the internet. Because there is no way to predict such conditions (Lee, 2015). That is why no one should be shocked when a stock trading program suddenly crashes. Such complexity is inevitable in the It. Especially many of those items have software implemented just like fragile software in today’s automobiles. That doesn’t mean we should not continue to develop new software or new technologies. At the moment we start to believe that the software is more stable and secure than the people who designed it.

Australian Data Retention Laws

After conducting the research the experts noted that the internet will be gaining speed like electricity, it will be less visible and more deeply entrenched in individuals lives for good and evil (Beecher and Henry, 2017). Information on the internet will be so effortless into our daily lives that it will become invisible like machine intermediaries. Dangerous differences will develop the greatest asset. Focusing on the importance of the person who is using this technology is the best way to bring enlightened solutions to provide better security at the same time respecting someone’s privacy. Security transformation is achieved by controlling the lifecycle of the data. And electronic digital rights management helps to make this control possible. A solution which integrates the application layer and can automatically apply the high-level encryption and protect the structure and transactional data using centrally managed policies. Transparency, assurance and user trust helps foster accountability (Zakariya, Sari, Prabandari and Budiatmaja, 2017). A technological approach is tied to the procedural approach as well. Provisions for hybrid accountability via private type legal and regulatory and technical means helping both public and private forms of accountability.

Class courts and actions: Class action lawsuits have brought thousands of companies like Facebook and Google, demanding for cash for violating the consumers’ privacy. Class action levels the field of playing by letting consumers, who don’t have the assets to take over big companies and sue them (Albareeq et al., 2017). The lawsuits provide that powerful financial help that makes them think twice how to treat the data. Although consumers have won a lot of multi-million dollar class actions, they still have to give proof of it. These are basically for a company to give away money to private lawyers. The payments may better the privacy in the long term but the average person doesn’t know about it in the first place. Technology to control the data: The concept is to make use of the techniques that ensure companies do not collect the personal information. These tech-based solutions promise to let people use the internet without any creepy factor (Lachman, Swanson and Brown, 2015). Though, they are to remain the preserve of average citizens who are perplexed by internet cookies.

Let the federal government intervene: It has the power to pass a privacy act that can bring a fundamental change in how a company collects and uses the personal data. Most western bodies have created privacy commissioners to safeguard consumers and to spread awareness. Understand the endpoints: Every new IoT endpoint brought in a network has a potential point of entry for cybercriminals.IoT tools are built by numerous manufacturers, on proprietary OS and have various levels of computing. Track and manage devices: Roll out an asset discovery, tracking and management solutions (Kaplan, 2014). Identifying what IT security cannot address: The physical aspect of dealing with connected device accounts for data use and collection. Consider remediation and patching: This is important because the code needs to be changed over the time and some devices might have the limited ability to do patching because it involves multiple steps and may be more difficult. Task driven strategy: IT leaders should assign the highest value and risk to the assets and secure them. Perform evaluation and testing: This includes some sort of reverse engineering according to the use case. Changing the default credentials: Passwords which are difficult to change or cannot be changed. Hackers are aware of what the password can be. Looking at the data: The way the IoT devices behave with the data generated by their devices to state its standard format (Kroll and Pouncey, 2016).

References

Albareeq, J.M., Aal, A.A., Abozenah, H., Alhourani, F., Alromaihi, D., Alsowaidi, A., Corbally, M., Fadel, E., Sharif, O., Skowronski, S. and Tierney, E. (2017) Research and Ethics for the Medical Profession. Partridge Publishing Singapore.

Beecher, M.D. and Henry, K. (2017) Ethics and clinical research. In Ethics and Medical Decision-Making (pp. 3-9). New York: Routledge.

Fisher, C.B. (2016) Decoding the ethics code: A practical guide for psychologists. California: Sage Publications.

Gunn, A.S. (2017) Environmental Ethics For Engineers: Florida: CRC Press.

Iggers, J. (2018) Good news, bad news: Journalism ethics and the public interest. New York: Routledge.

Kangasniemi, M., Pakkanen, P. and Korhonen, A. (2015) Professional ethics in nursing: an integrative review. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(8), pp.1744-1757.

Kaplan, D.M. (2014) Ethical implications of a critical legal case for the counseling profession: Ward v. Wilbanks. Journal of Counseling & Development, 92(2), pp.142-146.

Kroll, J. and Pouncey, C. (2016) The ethics of APA’s goldwater rule. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law, 44(2), pp.226-235.

Lachman, V.D., Swanson, E.O. and Winland-Brown, J. (2015) The new ‘Code of Ethics for Nurses With Interpretive Statements’(2015): practical clinical application, part II. Medsurg Nurs, 24(5), pp.363-368.

Lee, S. (2015) Ethics and the Korean Academic Profession. International Higher Education, (25).

Tolk, A. and Ören, T. eds. (2017) The Profession of Modeling and Simulation: Discipline, Ethics, Education, Vocation, Societies, and Economics (Vol. 253). US: John Wiley & Sons.

Zakariya, H., Sari, Y.P., Prabandari, D. and Budiatmaja, W.R. (2017) Reviewing a notary ethics based on ethical code as a notary profession. Yustisia Jurnal Hukum, 6(3), pp.673-681.