Several initiatives are in the works at both national and international levels of government to address consumer privacy rights. Public records, once the domain of country courthouses, can now be made available to anyone over the internet for a price, via an online data broker. Unfortunately, selling this information is not currently illegal. Obtainable information includes; current addresses, phone numbers, aliases, property ownership, bankruptcies, tax liens, civil judgments, relatives or roommates names, and even a criminal background check (www.usa-people-search.com). Once such company, called CellularTrace, can provide a cellular phone trace for a fee. This company can provide a reverse look-up on a cell phone number, information on a changed or disconnected cell number, or to locate the cell phone number itself (www.cellulartrace.com). Many people believe this is unethical, because stalkers, gangsters, and others can use the date maliciously (Belsen, 2006). Furthermore, CellularTrace provides a Disclaimer (www.cellulartrace.com/disclaimer.htm), which must be agreed to by all who places orders, that states that the person requesting the information is, and/or will use the information for: Law enforcement, fraud or insurance investigation, journalistic endeavors, investigations of missing persons, locating heirs or beneficiaries, collection of monies owed, the location or repossession of mortgaged collateral, licensed private investigation, legal investigations, legal research service of process, witness location, fugitive apprehension, fraud prevention, genealogical research, loss prevention, product recalls, location of former patients (medical industry only), locating customers, previous customers or fraud victim. This implies that the information should be used for the conduct of business in a non-personal way, or for informational purposes only. However, on the CellularTrace website there are pictures of people who appear to be "cheating" on their spouses or significant others, with the following captions: "Suspicions of infidelity are often confirmed by cell phone research", and "Many cheaters try to hide their unfaithful communications by using their cell phones", and finally, "If you suspect your husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend is cheating, and need cellular research to confirm or eliminate your suspicions, we can help by providing number traces, call records, and more!" (www.cellulartrace.com/about_us.htm). Not only is this incendiary advertisement, but it is actually prohibited by their own disclaimer! Legislators have vowed to shut down these sites. The Gramm-Leach-Bailey Act, passed by Congress in 1999, prohibits people from deceiving companies to obtain financial records, but as yet does not cover phone records (Belson, 2006). So, although alarm bells are going off, and people feel it is unethical to sell personal information, it is as yet not illegal.
When one looks around in public it is almost impossible not to see someone who is talking, texting, or playing a game on a cell phone. When someone sends a text, the phone company saves it in a data bank where it sits waiting to be u...
The legal justification for the collecting of this data is Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which authorizes the government to collect domestic phone records. Section 215 expanded the extent of what could be collected and lowered the standards required to do so. The information that can be collected specifically from phone companies is the number of and length of calls made, but not what the contents of the calls is. There was also an amendment to this section that required law enforcement to have "reasonable suspicion" of terrorist activities before requesting data.
Lye, L. (2013). Keeping cell phones private. If the police have a good reason to search a phone, then they can get a warrant, Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2013/09/16/warrantless-cell-phone-searches-violate-civil-liberties
The personal connection Americans have with their phones, tablets, and computers; and the rising popularity of online shopping and social websites due to the massive influence the social media has on Americans, it is clear why this generation is called the Information Age, also known as Digital Age. With the Internet being a huge part of our lives, more and more personal data is being made available, because of our ever-increasing dependence and use of the Internet on our phones, tablets, and computers. Some corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook; governments, and other third parties have been tracking our internet use and acquiring data in order to provide personalized services and advertisements for consumers. Many American such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers,” Anil Dagar who wrote the article “Internet, Economy and Privacy,” and Grace Nasri who wrote the article “Why Consumers are Increasingly Willing to Trade Data for Personalization,” believe that the continuing loss of personal privacy may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy and see privacy as outdated and unimportant. Privacy is dead and corporations, governments, and third parties murdered it for their personal gain not for the interest of the public as they claim. There are more disadvantages than advantages on letting corporations, governments, and third parties track and acquire data to personalized services and advertisements for us.
Price and Sorrells shows that companies are taking too much advantage from the customer, the government, even though their trying, needs to start helping the people protect their privacy, and a balance between the amount of trust people should have giving out their sensitive records to which information is protected. A concern that is happening that the government and corporations is that personal information is not secured well enough. Price states how over 100 million sensitive records were hacked or lost in a year and the percent of increase in data breaches is 650 more than last year. Her description of how unreliable the government is with personal information by using logical and well researched information to put no faith and fear in the reader.
You might think that it is not possible for information from your telephony metadata to reveal enough about a single person to cause harm, but it can actually expose an extraordinarily large amount about our habits and our associations. For example, calling patterns can reveal when we are awake and asleep, our religion (for example, if a person regularly makes no calls on Eid day, or makes a large number of calls on Christmas Day), our work habits and our social aptitude, the number of friends we have, and even our civil and political affiliations. It cannot be denied that modern terrorists, online, are a real risk. This is how they contact each other, learn to make bombs and carry out attacks, they can even, without resorting to illegal means, gather at least 80% of all information needed about the enemy (with a risk now much higher, thanks to Edward Snowden). Also, it is through the internet that the NSA can recognize and prevent attacks before they even happen, which has happened over 50 times since 9/11. Of course, we can 't stop every attack, but it is unnecessary for citizens to have to live their lives knowing they 're being watched without consent.
When we mention the word ‘privacy’, we mean that there is something very personal about ourselves. Something that we think others are not supposed to know, or, we do not want them to. Nevertheless, why is it so? Why are people so reluctant to let others know about them entirely? This is because either they are afraid of people doing them harm or they are scared that people may treat them differently after their secrets are known. Without privacy, the democratic system that we know would not exist. Privacy is one of the fundamental values on which our country was established. Moreover, with the internet gaining such popularity, privacy has become a thing of the past. People have come to accept that strangers can view personal information about them on social networking sites such as Facebook, and companies and the government are constantly viewing a person’s activity online for a variety of reasons. From sending email, applying for a job, or even using the telephone, Americans right to privacy is in danger. Personal and professional information is being stored, link, transferred, shared, and even sold. Various websites, the government and its agencies, and hospitals are infringing our privacy without our permission or knowledge.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, also know as the FBI is an interesting topic. The FBI is the “principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice”, also known as DOJ. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is responsible in collecting facts and giving or writing reports that one has either perceived, investigated or observed. As well as, assembling evidence in cases that involve Federal jurisdiction and assembling evidence. Not to mention, it bestows law enforcement leadership and reinforcement to international and state law enforcement agencies, which enforce the law.
here’s also a calendar on the phone, with all the information about where we have been and where we are planning to go. All this information is private and sensitive and this has to be protected carefully from criminals and hackers.
...ies may argue that this act is hindering cold-calling companies from existing in the market but there is a controversy. It is apparent that consumers tend to reject the phone calls when they are angry to find that their privacy is sold.
However, the same personal data is being compromised and eroding privacy. Companies have been getting bolder in their attempts to gather, share and sell data. The latest trend is outsourcing data to third party companies for data processing, which can be done at a lower cost. One of the main problems with this approach is that a lot of very sensitive data is being sent, which could be harmful in the wrong hands. Most companies require their customers to "opt-out" to prevent their data from being shared with a company's affiliates. This process requires the customer to explicitly tell the company not to share their data, which is usually in the form of a web site or a survey sent in the mail. These surveys are often thrown away by consumers, so they don't even realize that they're giving the companies a green light to sell and share their data.
As aforementioned, in recent years the internet has increased popularity and with that comes some concerns in laws regarding the cloud. Few laws have been created to protect the users of the internet from non consensual use of personal information. “Usually the only legal precedents restricting a company is its own privacy policy but most companies give you a sense of protection without any legality behind it,”(2013, CQ Researcher, Big data and privacy). This is a problem because with no laws or policies protecting the private internet user companies will be able to do what they want with the information and nothing will stop them.
In this new era of the Internet, most people use the Internet to acquire information of one kind or other. But what these people are not aware of is that the Internet is collecting information about them. Every time we get onto the Internet there might be a compromise of privacy of our personal information. The information flows both ways. With every clock of the mouse on a hyperlink, or an addition to the mailing list, someone out there might be gathering information about us. This raises the seriousness of privacy of our information on the Internet.
Data privacy issues arise in wide range of areas such as healthcare records, financial information, regarding genetic material in biology, geographical records, criminal justice and investigations and also in the use of
Privacy is the condition where someone personal information can not be documented and be used by others (Parent, 1983). Privacy has been and continues to be a significant issue of concern for both current and prospective electronic commerce customers. The foll...