Privacy can mean many things. The amount of privacy I want or need probably differs from the amount which the person reading this desires. I believe that there was and never will be any 1 definition of what privacy means, and the digital age has only made it more difficult. Technological innovations which give us a digital identity and a place where we insert our personal information have become more commonplace, which should encourage us to rethink what exactly we put out into the web. Technology has made effectively made priavacy a bigger issue since malicious actors can pose as institutions we trust and phish out information, with us not batting an eye. That is the issue here: our care-free mentality.
Technology’s easy use has put us into a position where we completely trust the institutions we use. Places where we put our personal information such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where we usually skip the TOS and overlook security options, due to our confidence in them, have put us into a false sense of security where we do not really care what we put out there and how our privacy it their top concern. Evidence of our trust is how many people fall prey to spear phising emails. According to research, 70% are opened by people and 50% of the opened emails result in clicked links leading to data breaches. Technology has made us get too comfortable in putting our information online which results in more people falling prey to data breaches and phising, with the end result being more panic about privacy.
Therefore, it is important to recognize that these institutions are not perfect in protecting our data so that we can also think before we put whatever about us online. All in all, there is nothing wrong with a bit of healthy suspicion:)
