Privacy Essays Example

As information technology becomes increasingly common in how we live, it has become inevitable that we rely on it to do everything from communicate, entertain ourselves, and work. While the increase in available information about us and our activities has a number of benefits such as the better ability to create our personalized online experience, there is a dark side as well such as the potential for others use the information to invade our expectations of privacy.
For example, “cookies” is one method that online companies and organizations use to collect information about the customers and visitors. A cookie refers to a piece of software that is places one one’s computer, smartphone, or tablet by a company or organization when you visit their website. A cookie collects certain information about your Internet behavior, so that like a literal trail of cookies, when you visit the site at another time, it will remember you. Without cookies, companies argue, no matter how many times you visit their website you treated like it was our first visit every time. Cookies violate an individual’s right to privacy, however, when they are placed on your computer without your knowledge. This would be like a company putting a camera in your house without your permission. Moreover, cookies violate the right to privacy when they record more information than is necessary to improve your user experience on the website such as record other websites that you visit.
Another way that some organizations, especially everyday stores like the ones at a mall, collect information about shoppers is a technique known as Wi-Fi tracking. In Wi-Fi tracking, a shop is able to track shoppers when their smartphone connect to a store’s or a mall’s public Wi-Fi system. This tracking can inform a store, for instance, how long a shopper is in the store, what areas of the store did the shopper stay the longest. In essence, Wi-Fi tracking allows the store or organization to follow shoppers to the extent of how far the Wi-Fi network stretches. The problem with Wi-Fi tacking is that it is often done automatically as phones, are generally set to look for and connect to the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot in order to save using it 3G or 4G accounts. Accordingly, organizations can track shoppers without their knowledge or ability to do something about it.
As mentioned, not every method that organizations use to capture an individual’s information is a violation of their privacy. The use of video cameras and closed circuit television is still another way that companies, organizations and governments gather information about their customers, employees and citizens. While the idea of having video cameras everywhere may seem wrong intuitively, in fact they do not violate a individual’s right to privacy. Most people know what their purpose is, namely to track people. Moreover, most people understand that our activities in a public area have less privacy protections. On the other hand, video cameras may assist an organization better understand its customers such as times of high volume.
Lastly, company and organization login procedures are a traditional measure for collecting information about employees or customers in that it allows an organization to known when, where and who signed into a specific account or gained access to a specific section of the building. While these procedures can be quite intrusive in that they can allow someone to, in essence know your whereabouts in the physical world or on a computer network, they are nevertheless not invasions of privacy. First, it is commonly understood that login information such as password and user name can be tracked back to a specific person. Moreover, it is or should be general knowledge that companies have the authority and sometime the duty to track how their property is used or accessed.