Taking photographs and posting them online for friends and family to see is a pervasive practice in this day and age of social media; however, who all is really seeing these posts? Where we think that we are being safe online and utilizing private accounts so that not everyone in the public is able to view our content, the wide reach of the internet is always one step ahead of us.
After watching an incredibly eye opening Ted Talk video, presented by Juan Enriquez, he shared frightening insight on how our personal photos and images are being utilized in a data cloud larger than we could ever imagine. Enriquez shares a company with us called 'Face.com'. Have you ever heard of it? Probably not, but, your face is probably on it! This website was sold to Facebook in 2018 with other 18 billion photo images of peoples faces from around the world. Where we are getting impressed by facial scanning and recognition in our personal photo apps on our phones, those images and information is being shared across the internet without our knowledge.
If Enriquez's insight did not frighten you enough, let me share with you one more astonishing piece of information. When we think about the police, the average person considers them to be a safe haven, helping to protect us and our information. However, what is your reaction when I share that every day, police are capturing images of peoples cars, faces, and whereabout through small license plate reading cameras on their police cars? Mike Katz-Lacabe was intrigued about the alleged storing and tracking of information by police cars, and went into the station to see if his local police department had any information on his vehicle. The findings were more shocking that he could have ever imagined. The police department had dozens of instances where Lacabe's car was caught on camera, including the date, time, and location of where he was. One of the examples showed him in the driveway at his own home, with him and his 2 daughters faces clearly captured in the image. This example of data tracking and storing is overwhelming to comprehend, and impossible to avoid.
Although we all think to limit and censor what information we voluntarily put onto the internet, it is vital to consider what personal information hits the internet without us sharing it or knowing about it. The rise of technology is incredibly useful, however, at what point has technology and the internet gone too far?
No comments:
Post a Comment