PRIVACY
PRIVACYBy: PHIL McCREVUS
E-mail: [email protected]
Ensuring Your Privacy "Privacy. There seems to be no legal issue today that cuts so wide a swath through conflicts confronting American society. From AIDS tests to wiretaps, polygraph tests to computerized data bases, the common denominator has been whether the right to privacy outweighs other concerns of society....." Robert Ellis Smith, the Privacy Journal Computers have been a very instrumental technology that has greatly advanced the ways in which we now do things such as; business, daily activities, shopping, scheduling appointments, and many other things. And with more and more people using the Internet, more and more information being passed over the Internet, more problems arise. The Internet has been an advance in technology that has greatly increased the capacities of a computer. These new capacities have been the cause of some serious problems though. One very important trouble is the lack of privacy on the Internet. People pass much important information over the Internet and they expect it to be safe from others. Information passed over the Internet can in fact be intercepted and read by other people. For many years, this has been happening, and it has always been a problem, but with more and more information being passed through, people want something to ensure their privacy. The government does not want to allow everyday people the privelage of computer security. Although they have tried to place laws on the uses of some methods of privacy, they have not been as successful as they had hoped. Privacy is important to people, governments and businesses, and finding a method to protect their information is also a concern. Privacy has been defined as "the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others" (Summers, 22). With the advances in technology, it has become very hard to ensure your privacy. Collecting, manipulating, and sharing data has become increasingly easier to do. Peoples personal data is becoming alarmingly easier to obtain. Our preferences, our addresses, telephone numbers, and Social Security numbers all are sold routinely. In a 1995 United States survey, 80 percent agreed that consumers have lost all control over how personal information about them is circulated and used by companies (Summers, 23). Some of the most powerful companies and corporations are powerful because of their ability to obtain private information at anytime. Microsoft, the computer software company, is powerful because it designs the operating system that millions of people use to organize and transmit data. The Washington Post is powerful because it screens, sorts, and defines "the news" for influential readers (Bacard, 33). The average person has little power because he absorbs data form others rather than transmitting data to others. Computer companies have been trying to come up with ways in which a person can have some assemblage of privacy. Privacy is important to people. People do not want others to be able to get this information. Privacy...
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