Expert answer:Technology issue (please write the best title for
Solved by verified expert:Please submit a 4-5 page paper that illustrates the major issues that you find relevant regarding this issue. Each student should address the positive and negative consequences of these technologies in helping to address national security issues and how the technologies illustrated are eroding our freedoms. Lastly, please illustrate what you do to protect yourself from Internet hackers and those trying to compromise your Internet safety. This assignment should include references in APA style, and is to be submitted via the dropbox contained within this folder. Remember, only submit your work in Microsoft Word.
privacy_issues__read_me__first_a_brief_introduction.pdf
privacy_under_attack.pdf
technology_as_a_threat_to_privacy.pdf
video_links_associated_with_privacy__1_.pdf
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A brief introduction to privacy issues
In the United States today, our individual privacy is being eroded on a daily basis. This is a direct result of
the technologies that we use and those that are imposed upon us. For example, I may elect to use a card
given to me by my grocery store. This card gives me discounts on future products or gasoline based on
how much I spend each month at the store. However, the card is also tracking my personal habits of
how often I shop, what products I purchase, and the data will be used to target me with future
advertisements. I may have a Smart TV in my home, and this television can record images from within
the home or capture what people are discussing in the home. The television may also track what I
watch, and it can be used to target the household with specific advertisements based on my viewing
habits. Similar technologies are also used on Smart Phones, personal computers, and wireless devices
within our home.
Think about how many times your personal information is captured each day as you work, shop, or
conduct leisure time activities. While walking down the street in a big city or attending a large social
gathering at a football game, etc., your image is being captured by local, state, and federal
governmental agencies. When you use a bank card, the government is able to track you. When you use
a cell phone, the government is able to track you and capture what was spoken during that phone
conversation. While some may point to the positive aspects of this technology, we should all be
concerned about why the data is being collected, for how long it is being stored, and why the
information is needed. This lesson reviews these concerns, and asks what do we do to protect our
individual privacy.
One more item, that each of you should find interesting. For as little at $19.95 anyone of us can obtain
a detailed report about any individual in the United States. There are numerous services available to
find this information. The report you obtain will provide information on their: criminal history, personal
information, marriage and divorce records, public phone numbers, persons related to them, licenses
held by the individual, arrest records, speeding tickets, and partnerships or business dealings. I find this
both interesting and scary. I hope you all enjoy this assignment.
Dr. G.
Privacy under attack, but does anybody care?
By Bob Sullivan (2006)
msnbc.com
It’s vanishing, but there’s no consensus on what it is or what should be done
Mario Tama / Getty Images file
Pedestrians walk beneath the unblinking eyes of a twin-lens wireless video recorder attached to a lamp post on Knickerbocker
Avenue April in Brooklyn, N.Y. Using federal grants, the New York Police Department eventually plans to place 500 security cameras
around the city.
Someday a stranger will read your e-mail, rummage through your instant messages without your
permission or scan the Web sites you’ve visited — maybe even find out that you read this story.
You might be spied in a lingerie store by a secret camera or traced using a computer chip in your
car, your clothes or your skin. Perhaps someone will casually glance through your credit card
purchases or cell phone bills, or a political consultant might select you for special attention based
on personal data purchased from a vendor. In fact, it’s likely some of these things have already
happened to you.
Who would watch you without your permission? It might be a spouse, a girlfriend, a marketing
company, a boss, a cop or a criminal. Whoever it is, they will see you in a way you never intended to
be seen — the 21stcentury equivalent of being caught naked.
Psychologists tell us boundaries are healthy, that it’s important to reveal yourself to friends, family
and lovers in stages, at appropriate times. But few boundaries remain. The digital bread crumbs you
leave everywhere make it easy for strangers to reconstruct who you are, where you are and what
you like. In some cases, a simple Google search can reveal what you think. Like it or not, increasingly
we live in a world where you simply cannot keep a secret.
The key question is: Does that matter? For many Americans, the answer apparently is “no.”
When pollsters ask Americans about privacy, most say they are concerned about losing it. An
MSNBC.com survey, which will be covered in detail on Tuesday, found an overwhelming pessimism
about privacy, with 60 percent of respondents saying they feel their privacy is “slipping away, and
that bothers me.”
People do and don’t care
But people say one thing and do another. Only a tiny fraction of Americans – 7 percent, according
to a recent survey by The Ponemon Institute – change any behaviors in an effort to preserve their
privacy. Few people turn down a discount at toll booths to avoid using the EZ-Pass system that can
track automobile movements. And few turn down supermarket loyalty cards. Carnegie Mellon
privacy economist Alessandro Acquisti has run a series of tests that reveal people will surrender
personal information like Social Security numbers just to get their hands on a measly 50-cents-off
coupon.
But woe to the organization that loses a laptop computer containing personal information. When
the Veterans Administration lost a laptop with 26.5 million Social Security numbers on it, the agency
felt the lash of righteous indignation from the public and lawmakers alike. So, too, did ChoicePoint,
LexisNexis, Bank of America, and other firms that reported in the preceding months that millions of
identities had been placed at risk by the loss or theft of personal data.
So privacy does matter – at least sometimes. But it’s like health: When you have it, you don’t notice
it. Only when it’s gone do you wish you’d done more to protect it. But protect what? Privacy is an
elusive concept. One person’s privacy is another person’s suppression of free speech and another
person’s attack on free enterprise and marketing – distinctions we will explore in detail on
Wednesday, when comparing privacy in Europe and the United States.
Still, privacy is much more than an academic free speech debate. The word does not appear in the
U.S. Constitution, yet the topic spawns endless constitutional arguments. And it is a wide-ranging
subject, as much about terrorism as it is about junk mail. Consider the recent headlines that have
dealt with just a few of its many aspects:
Hewlett Packard executives hiring private investigators to spy on employees and
journalists.
Rep. Mark Foley sending innuendo-laden instant messages – a reminder that
digital communication lasts forever and that anonymous sources can be unmasked
by clever bloggers from just a few electronic clues.
The federal government allegedly compiling a database of telephone numbers
dialed by Americans, and eavesdropping on U.S. callers dialing international calls
without obtaining court orders.
Privacy will remain in the headlines in the months to come, as states implement the federal
government’s Real ID Act, which will effectively create a national identification program by
requiring new high-tech standards for driver’s licenses and ID cards. We’ll examine the implications
of this new technological pressure point on privacy on Thursday.
What is privacy?
Most Americans struggle when asked to define privacy. More than 6,500 MSNBC readers tried to do
it in our survey. The nearest thing to consensus was this sentiment, appropriately offered by an
anonymous reader: “Privacy is to be left alone.”
The phrase echoes a famous line penned in 1890 by soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice William
Brandeis, the father of the American privacy movement and author of “The Right to Privacy.” At the
time, however, Brandeis’ concern was tabloid journalism rather than Internet cookies, surveillance
cameras, no-fly lists and Amazon book suggestions.
As privacy threats multiply, defending this right to be left alone becomes more challenging. How do
you know when you are left alone enough? How do you say when it’s been taken? How do you
measure what’s lost? What is the real cost to a person whose Social Security number is in a datastorage device left in the back seat of a taxi?
Perhaps a more important question, Acquisti says, is how do consumers measure the consequences
of their privacy choices? In a standard business transaction, consumers trade money for goods or
services. The costs and the benefits are clear. But add privacy to the transaction, and there is really
no way to perform a cost-benefit analysis.
If a company offers $1 off a gallon of milk in exchange for a name, address, and phone number, how
is the privacy equation calculated? The benefit of surrendering the data is clear, but what is the
cost? It might be nothing. It might be an increase in junk mail. It might be identity theft if a hacker
steals the data. Or it might end up being the turning point in a divorce case. Did you buy milk for
your lactose-intolerant child? Perhaps you’re an unfit mother or father.
Unassessable costs
“People can’t make intelligent (privacy) choices,” Acquisti said. “People realize there could be future
costs, but they decide not to focus on those costs. The simple act of surrendering a telephone
number to a store clerk may seem innocuous — so much so that many consumers do it with no
questions asked. Yet that one action can set in motion a cascade of silent events, as that data point
is acquired, analyzed, categorized, stored and sold over and over again. Future attacks on your
privacy may come from anywhere, from anyone with money to purchase that phone number you
surrendered.
If you doubt the multiplier effect, consider your e-mail inbox. If it’s loaded with spam, it’s
undoubtedly because at some point in time you unknowingly surrendered your e-mail to the wrong
Web site. Do you think your telephone number or address are handled differently? A cottage
industry of small companies with names you’ve probably never heard of — like Acxiom or Merlin —
buy and sell your personal information the way other commodities like corn or cattle futures are
bartered.
You may think your cell phone is unlisted, but if you’ve ever ordered a pizza, it might not be. Merlin
is one of many commercial data brokers that advertises sale of unlisted phone numbers compiled
from various sources — including pizza delivery companies.
These unintended, unpredictable consequences that flow from simple actions make privacy issues
difficult to grasp, and grapple with.
Privacy’s nebulous nature is never more evident than when Congress attempts to legislate solutions
to various perceived problems. Marc Rotenberg, who runs the Electronic Privacy Information
Center and is called to testify whenever the House or Senate debates privacy legislation, is often
cast as a liberal attacking free markets and free marketing and standing opposite data collection
capitalists like ChoicePoint or the security experts at the Department of Homeland Security. He
once whimsically referred to privacy advocates like himself as a “data huggers.” Yet the “right to be
left alone” is a decidedly conservative — even Libertarian — principle. Many Americans would argue
their right to be left alone while holding a gun on their doorstep.
In a larger sense, privacy also is often cast as a tale of “Big Brother” — the government is watching
you or a big corporation is watching you. But privacy issues don’t necessarily involve large faceless
institutions: A spouse takes a casual glance at her husband’s Blackberry, a co-worker looks at e-mail
over your shoulder or a friend glances at a cell phone text message from the next seat on the bus.
‘Nothing to hide’
While very little of this is news to anyone – people are now well aware there are video cameras
and Internet cookies everywhere – there is abundant evidence that people live their lives ignorant
of the monitoring, assuming a mythical level of privacy. People write e-mails and type instant
messages they never expect anyone to see. Just ask Mark Foley or even Bill Gates, whose e-mails
were a cornerstone of the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Microsoft.
It took barely a day for a blogger to track down the identity of the congressional page at the center
of the Foley controversy. The blogger didn’t just find the page’s name and e-mail address; he found
a series of photographs of the page that had been left online. Nor do college students heed
warnings that their MySpace pages laden with fraternity party photos might one day cost them a
job. The roster of people who can’t be Googled shrinks every day. And polls and studies have
repeatedly shown that Americans are indifferent to privacy concerns.
The general defense for such indifference is summed up a single phrase: “I have nothing to hide.” If
you have nothing to hide, why shouldn’t the government be able to peek at your phone records,
your wife see your e-mail or a company send you junk mail? It’s a powerful argument, one that
privacy advocates spend considerable time discussing and strategizing over.
It is hard to deny, however, that people behave different when they’re being watched. And it is also
impossible to deny that Americans are now being watched more than at any time in history.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Without an instant message evidence trail, would anyone believe
a congressional page accusing Rep. Foley of making online advances? And perhaps cameras really
do cut down on crime.
No place to hide
But cameras accidentally catch innocents, too. Virginia Shelton, 46, her daughter, Shirley, 16; and a
friend, Jennifer Starkey, 17, were all arrested and charged with murder in 2003 because of an outof-synch ATM camera. Their pictures were flashed in front of a national audience and they spent
three weeks in a Maryland jail before it was discovered that the camera was set to the wrong time.
“Better 10 guilty persons escape than one innocent person suffer” is a phrase made famous by
British jurist William Blackstone, whose work is often cited as the base of U.S. common law, and is
invoked by the U.S. Supreme Court when it wants to discuss a legal point that predates the
Constitution.
It is not clear how the world of high-tech surveillance squares with Blackstone’s ratio. What would
he say about a government that mines databases of telephone calls for evidence that someone
might be about to commit a crime? What would an acceptable error rate be? Rather than having
“nothing to hide,” author Robert O’Harrow declared two years ago that Americans have “No Place
to Hide” in his book of the same name.
“More than ever before, the details about our lives are no longer our own,” O’Harrow wrote. “They
belong to the companies that collect them, and the government agencies that buy or demand them
in the name of keeping us safe.” That may be a trade-off we are willing, even wise, to make. It
would be, O’Harrow said, “crazy not to use tech to keep us safer.” The terrorists who flew planes
into the World Trade Center were on government watch lists, and their attack was successful only
because technology wasn’t used efficiently.
Time to talk about it
But there is another point in the discussion about which there is little disagreement: The debate
over how much privacy we are willing to give up never occurred. When did consumers consent to
give their entire bill-paying histories to credit bureaus, their address histories to a company like
ChoicePoint, or their face, flying habits and telephone records to the federal government? It seems
our privacy has been slipping away — 1s and 0s at a time — while we were busy doing other things.
Our intent in this week-long series is to invite readers into such a debate.
Some might consider the invitation posthumous, delivered only after our privacy has died. Sun’s
founder and CEO Scott McNealy famously said in 1999 that people “have no privacy – get over it.”
But privacy is not a currency. It is much more like health or dignity or well-being; a source of anxiety
when weak and a source of quiet satisfaction when strong. Perhaps it’s naïve in these dangerous
times to believe you can keep secrets anymore – your travels, your e-mail, your purchasing history
is readily available to law enforcement officials and others. But everyone has secrets they don’t
want everyone else to know, and it’s never too late to begin a discussion about how Americans’
right to privacy can be protected.
TECHNOLOGY AS A THREAT TO
PRIVACY: Ethical Challenges to the
Information Profession
J. J. BRITZ
Department of Information Science
University of Pretoria
0002 Pretoria, South Africa
E-mail: britz@libarts.up.ac.za
The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of technology on the private lives of people.
It is approached from a socio-ethical perspective with specific emphasis on the
implication for the information profession. The issues discussed are the concept privacy,
he influence of technology on the processing of personal and private information, the
relevance of this influence for the information profession, and proposed solutions to these
ethical issues for the information profession.
1. INTRODUCTION
We are currently living in the so-called information age which can be described as an
era were economic activities are mainly information based (an age of
informationalization). This is due to the development and use of technology. The main
characteristics of this era can be summarized as a rise in the number of knowledge
workers, a world that has become more open – in the sense of communication (global
village/Gutenberg galaxy) and internationalization (trans-border flow of data).
This paradigm shift brings new ethical and juridical problems which are mainly
related to issues such as the right of access to information, the right of privacy which
is threatened by the emphasis on the free flow of information, and the protection of
the economic interest of the owners of intellectual property.
In this paper the ethical questions related to the right to privacy of the individual
which is threatened by the use of technology will be discussed. Specific attention will
be given to the challenges these ethical problems pose to the information professional.
A number of practical guidelines, based on ethical norms will be laid down.
2. ETHICS
The ethical actions of a person can be described in general terms as those actions
which are performed within the criterium of what is regarded as good. It relates thus
to the question of what is good or bad in terms of human actions. According to
Spinello (1995, p. 14) the purpose
of ethics is to help us behave honorably and attain those basic goods that make us
more fully human.
3. THE CONCEPT OF PRIVACY
3.1. Definition of Privacy
Privacy can be defined as an individual condition of life characterized by exclusion
from publicity (Neetling et al., 1996, p. 36). The concept follows from the right to be
left alone (Stair, 1992, p. 635; Shank, 1986, p. 12)1 . Shank (1986, p. 13) states that
such a perception of privacy set the course for passing of privacy laws in the United
States for the ninety years that followed. As such privacy could be regarded as a
natural right which provides the foundation for the legal right. The right to privacy is
therefore protected under private law.
The legal right to privacy is constitutionally protected in most democratic societies.
This constitutional right is expressed in a variety of legislative forms. Examples
include the Privacy Act (1974) in the USA, the proposed Open Democracy Act in
South Africa (1996) and the Data Protection Act in England. During 1994 Australia
also accepted a Privacy Charter containing 18 privacy principles which describe the
right of a citizen concerning personal privacy as effected by handling of information
by the state …
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