Is Digital Security and Privacy Mutually Exclusive Anymore?
In the current pandemic, life and normalcy have been forced to a new digital standard that has impacted all of us in one way or another. Many new and developed digital conveniences and services that we experience daily sometimes go unacknowledged and misunderstood. From new services that have abruptly become digital, like healthcare and large-scale education, there is a point where the technology of these digital and at-home services become more a part of our lives than expected. With new digital standards that have been brought into households, offices and public centers all across the globe, there is simply no looking back for some of those outlets when it comes to their digital integrations.
This is where the concern lies because a crucial misunderstood aspect involved with how these digital services work goes beyond our use of them but rather how these services and devices use us. There is no way one can ignore the new technological reality over the last several months. There is a growing dependence that we have on our devices and now more than ever, convenience is truly a tap away. Technological implementations in this pandemic in many ways have become remarkably standardized yet there is still much information about how these services work that goes misunderstood or undisclosed to the public who uses them. Having a doctor’s visit or a federal court hearing all online, which would seem outlandish just before 2020, has become the new standard. Of course, many of these services’ adoption into the digital world has been plainly for our safety but the reality is that the new era of technology in which we are currently in, is the world that giant tech companies were gradually planning for us… just not this soon.
Technologies like advanced video conferencing, advanced ai digital assistants, and especially live mobile to mobile contract tracing are becoming less subject to skepticism and too quickly accepted. This severe lack of questionability from users for these digital companies creates a huge opportunity regarding just how close they can become to our personal lives (Fahey.) Our data is flowing more freely than ever and we need to understand how. Though this technology may be for the better, rapid adoption is certainly up for question.
Who exactly pays for your “free trial” or “free membership?” Who collects the information you enter when you sign up for a service? Who is profiting off our use of a “free” service like zoom? Where does our data go? In a time where everything has gone digital, the question surrounding how our data works are more important than ever. Why? Because now we have no choice. Is privacy and personal data mutually exclusive?
Fahey, Robert A., and Airo Hino. “COVID-19, digital privacy, and the social limits on data-focused public health responses.” International Journal of Information Management 55 (2020): 102181.
