Privacy & Reputation

Privacy or not?

Digital reputation is the digital footprint created by all of the things you say and do online. This could include sites you follow, comments you make and even the posts you like. These all contribute to your digital reputation. In 1993, the New Yorker ran a comic that has since become iconic in the digital world. The two dogs suggest that the internet provides anonymity by suggesting “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. Fast forward 25 years and it is a very different story. In many ways, the internet has succeeded in making us inhabitants of our own small village. Everybody knows what your favourite interests are, what you like to do for fun and even what your favourite food is. The leader of that village is tech giant, Google.

If you are one of the millions that frequently visits Google chrome, Gmail or any web-based services from Google, chances are they already know everything about you. To top it off, Google is not backward in coming forward about admitting to data collection, in fact they admit they use your data to ‘make ads relevant’ and doesn’t hand over any information to advertisers (Haselton, 2020). Funnily enough we still get those pesky advertisers try and sell something we are not remotely interested in. Which brings me to my next point.

Data is worth money, which makes your online privacy susceptible to a breach. Searching online for a new car? Seems innocent enough right? Where in fact, your browser history could tip off advertisers to the fact that you are in the market for a new car – and then here comes the mass of ads from ranging from dealerships to car insurance.

The ‘Great Hack’

As technology evolves, and the internet becomes rife with more unsuspecting people, more and more data is being generated faster and faster. As a result, our digital footprint has grown exponentially, and we cannot keep up with the growing risks of hackers and cybercriminals. Unfortunately, we are not just at risk from cybercriminals, but also companies that focus on the ‘connectedness’ of the word – Facebook.

The Cambridge Analytica data hack materialised in 2018 and has been noted as one of the most complex scandals of our time. (Cadwalladr, 2019). The ‘Great Hack’ was a data breach that saw millions of Facebook users have their data shared without consent by Cambridge Analytica. It was a hack that was predominately used for political purposes since Cambridge Analytica worked for the Trump and Brexit campaign at the time. Cambridge Analytica bragged that it had up to 5000 data points on every US voter by applying “psychographic” analytics to its dataset, it claimed to be able to determine people’s personality type and then individually micro-target messages to influence their behaviour. (Westby, 2019).

Netflix have released a documentary called The Great Hack which tries to piece together the inner workings of what happened between Cambridge Analytica and Facebook and to uncover the truth behind hacking millions of people for political gain.

How to protect your digital identity

After conducting research into the Cambridge Analytical scandal, self-confessed whistle-blower Brittany Keiser stated, “data is the most valuable asset on earth”, which really resonated with me. It got me thinking, why do we not do more to protect it? There are a few simple steps you can do to protect your online identity and digital reputation:

1. Use strong and different passwords – the more complex the better!
2. Evade tracking – this can be done by using incognito mode on your browser
3. Stay on private wi-fi networks – public wi-fi networks do not encrypt traffic which means that anyone can snoop on your private information
4. Use an antivirus software

Millions of people use the internet at anyone time. Technology is evolving and people have more access on more devices allowing users to have information anywhere in the world at the click of a button. Unfortunately, cybercriminals and hackers have become more evolved and using different techniques to get their hands on your data. It has never been more important to stay vigilant and to protect your privacy at all costs. Otherwise, it is you that will fall victim to their crimes.

References 

Cadwalladr, C. (2019, July 21). The Great Hack: the film that goes behind the scenes of the Facebook data scandal. The Guardian, p.1

Haselton, T. (2020). How to find out what Google knows about you and limit the data it collects. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/20/what-does-google-know-about-me.html#:~:text=To%20its%20credit%2C%20Google%20doesn,data%20it%20collects%20and%20why.&text=It%20collects%20data%20on%20what,IP%20address%20and%20cookie%20data.

Westby, J. (2019). ‘The Great Hack’: Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of the iceberg. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/07/the-great-hack-facebook-cambridge-analytica/