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At the RSA Security Europe Conference in London, individual privacy was again brought to the front of people’s consciences. It was debated that communication has irrevocably changed, which has already had a bad effect on personal privacy levels. Before computers became so commonplace, conversations were normally carried out on the phone or in person. But now, a lot of correspondence is done by email or online. This creates a saved hard copy of all communication.

Getting rid of an email does not necessarily delete it. The recipient or sender still has a copy of the email on their email account. Furthermore, large data centres make it easier than ever to record online conversation. It was argued that cheaper technology costs and increasing memory hard drives mean that saving and collecting data is now more accomplishable than it was some years ago.

You might be asking why it would matter so much, but private data equals more money. Having access to loads of personal data can often result in companies making more money from advertising. Daily, this is routinely seen when signing up for anything new, with those ‘cross here if you do not want to receive any correspondence from us’; this occurs offline as well. However, how many users read all of the privacy policies and terms of agreement for the computer applications we use or the sites which we visit? It may be astonishing to examine a few of them and realize precisely what the website can do with your collected data.

Facebook continues to be derided for its convoluted privacy policy and not being transparent enough with users. It is completely possible for everyone to go through just about all the info on a person’s profile if they have not enabled selected privacy configurations. Whilst the security mindful among all of us will make sure to set our privacy settings accordingly, a lot of users do not realize they’re actually exposing themselves to prospective Internet crime and identity theft. It’s not just enough to argue that it is their own problem if their level of privacy becomes compromised. Additionally, companies should never wish to deceive users for the purpose of simpler data farming.

Google has also recently been under plenty of political and social complaints for its unauthorized collection of personal wi-fi data while collecting data as part of its StreetView services. Google basically listened in on people’s wi-fi connections and saved personal data. Google’s blas response upset plenty of people and many national governments got drawn into the debate challenging the legality of Google’s actions.

The more information an organization has on you, the more they can charge companies in order to target users. If an organization knows that you are female, aged between 30-40 and have four children, then advertisers will be willing to pay more since they are able to target their advertisements more efficiently. If an advertisement is targeted at the correct user then the sellers will get more results. Marketers are willing to pay more since then they could target with toy advertisements, home improvement advertisements, kitchen advertisements and so on, compared to advertisements for weight lifting or extreme sports (although these are gross stereotypes).

Hence, it is key to ensure you have read the terms of agreement accurately. Whenever you register for anything you are signing a contract. It is actually horrible to think one ill-judged registration for a website could result in anything bad a few years later. Always read the small print, it might sound clichd but it just may save you from sticky situations. Furthermore, you should also always keep safe online safety practices. Having a great password is a great first step but you might also want to use a password manager that will increase your online security! You can stash passwords to a site and keep them secure and safe.

If you eat a lot while surfing the internet, you may experience this problem. Sometimes it’s so bad that it feels like this!