Privacy x Security x Anonymity
Let’s understand the difference between privacy x security x anonymity before we explore why digital privacy is important, why it is non-existent on today’s internet, and what can we do about it.
Security determines how difficult it is for someone to penetrate a system, be it an app or a data center.
Privacy, on the other hand, about our right to keep our matters to ourselves.
Privacy x Society
We need feedback (data) from people to effectively run a civilized society. Traditionally this data was collected manually and people had the choice to understand what information they’re giving up in exchange for participation in society.
Today’s internet collects our personal data automatically and without our consent. Big tech companies can literally track every aspect of our life better than we can ourselves.
All of this data is used to keep us engaged on social media, sell us useless products & services, to influence our opinions, and even manipulate elections.
Your data is not your data
Big tech companies like Google and Facebook provide tools to website and app owners that let them measure traffic to their website and track us (users). But, website owners indirectly allow Google and Facebook to track us on all websites and apps which use their trackers.
Google maintained more than 70 percent of the total market share, in the web analytics market`, according to statista.
Then there are an infinite number of free services like photo editors, audio clippers, file format converters, email providers, messaging apps, cloud storage providers who offer free services to users while earning money by collecting and selling our data. Smaller players can’t collect as much data as the big tech can, so the only option for them is to sell the collected data to data brokers and big tech companies, making big tech even more powerful.
In short, data about us is all over the internet and it can end up in the hands of marketers, governments, and F knows who else.
Privacy is power
Companies spend millions to showcase how secure their devices, apps, and services are, but it’s very rare for them to explain how private our data is when we use their service. Who will protect our data from the protector?
Moreover, governments keep saying that You have nothing to fear about if you have nothing to hide, which would have been true only if people didn’t discriminate other people based on their appearance, beliefs, opinions, choices, etc.
This is where our right to privacy protects us from the judgemental thoughts and actions of our society. So, let’s fight for our right to privacy, so we don’t have to keep fighting for a livelihood that every human deserves.
What can we do?
Spread the word!!! An aware consumer is the biggest enemy of evil corporations.
Participate in policy making. Ask the people running your state about why they allow our data to be collected without our consent?
Lastly, take a look at my Simple and effective guide to protect our Privacy Online.