Introduction
With the rapid development of science and technology, the application of digital technology has created a new digital age. In the digital age, digital information technology is widely used in various fields of public life, and promotes the continuous updating and change of society. The characteristic of the digital age is that the application of digital technology in many fields such as production, life, culture, economy, politics, science and technology, education, etc. continues to expand and achieve significant benefits. Similarly, driven by mobile intelligence, the information revolution has not only changed the way people produce and live, but has also brought about privacy issues and is driving the formation of new social norms. “Privacy” can be a complex definition concept. As one of the most important legitimate rights and interests of citizens, the right to privacy can be considered as the right to access personal information, and citizens have the right to reasonably control the way personal information is transmitted (Bélanger & Crossler, 2011). However, the privacy rights of countless citizens have been violated in this era based on big data, and the issue of privacy in the digital age has become a social issue. Taking Australians as an example, a study of 1,600 Australians surveyed and found that 67% of respondents felt they had no control over their online privacy, even if they had adopted privacy-protecting settings when using the Internet; Another 47% of respondents are worried that the government will invade their privacy, and 79% of respondents believe that keeping information about phone numbers is an invasion of their personal privacy (Goggin, 2017).
The main threat to personal privacy in the digital age is the leakage of personal information, which is usually exposed in the process of collecting, storing, and using personal information on the Internet. Some enterprises, institutions and even individuals collect, illegally obtain, overuse, and illegally trade personal information at will, infringing on the personal privacy of the people and endangering the lives, health and property safety of the people. However, there are two main ways to leak personal privacy in the digital age, one is the user himself, and the other is leaked by the custodian or service provider. First of all, the disclosure of personal privacy by users generally means that users themselves do not take appropriate personal privacy protection measures and disclose their personal information at will on the Internet, that is, improper disposal of personal information. Secondly, the custodian or service provider leaks personal privacy. The custodian mainly refers to the information of the website registered by the user. Among the various websites we have registered, most websites require users to register an account and enter a user name, password, name, and email address. , phone number, home address, and some websites about funding or certification require more detailed identification information. These data are recorded in the database of the website. Once the website is illegally invaded or used, resulting in the loss of information in the website database, the user’s personal privacy information will also be leaked, resulting in a violation of their own privacy and security (DeVries, 2003).
Case study-“Facebook — Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal”
A related case here is the “Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal” in 2018.
According to related reports, a data analysis company named Cambridge Analytica obtained the Facebook personal privacy information of 50 million users and used the personal information of a large number of users to create an application to influence the voting results of the US presidential election. Allegedly, the “Cambridge Analytica” company has cooperated with Trump’s victory in the election and the Brexit incident. This is also one of the largest data breaches in the history of “Facebook”.
The cause of the incident dates back to 2014, when a Cambridge University scholar named Aleksandr Kogan collaborated with Cambridge Analytica to develop a personality test app called “this is your digital life” and posted it to Facebook superior. This application is collected through paid collection, and about 270,000 users participated in the test within a very short period of time, entering their names, interests and hobbies and other information. The most important thing is that there is an authorization requirement at the end of the questionnaire. The authorized application can not only obtain the user’s personal information, but also obtain the information of the user’s friends at the same time. It is through this authorization that the application has obtained the information data of about 50 million users. Cambridge Analytica, by analyzing a large amount of user data, selects the most suitable political advertisements for precise placement, and finally helpedTrump win the 2016 US election.
In this incident, Facebook obtained the user’s personal information legally, and the application “this is your digital life” they created using the user’s personal information also complied with the third-party application rules of the Facebook platform. The user’s private information is obtained by “sharing”. However, the third-party application “this is your digital life” did not legally use users’ personal information in accordance with Facebook’s platform policy, but provided users’ private data to Cambridge Analytica illegally and without authorization. Cambridge Analytica obtained the data without the client’s consent and authorization for the transfer. Obviously, the third-party application “this is your digital life” and the Cambridge Analytica company behind it are the culprits in this incident, but Facebook also has an unshirkable responsibility for this large-scale user information leak. (Dance, LaForgia & Confessore, 2018).
Possible reasons for the threat to privacy in the digital age
The development of the digital age has prompted the emergence of a large number of new technologies, and there are various ways for people’s privacy to be leaked. Here are three factors that may lead to threats to personal privacy in the digital age: mobile phone location, intelligent voice and facial recognition.
- Mobile phone positioning
With the popularity of smart phones, GPS positioning has become ubiquitous, and most users’ positioning positions have no privacy. Even if users do not specifically use applications to access the location, the user’s positioning can be easily known. This is because there are many mobile phone applications in the mobile phone that have nothing to do with the geographical location. Without your permission, it may also steal your mobile phone information and geographical location at any time, so as to track and locate you.
According to the British “Daily Mail” report on December 13, 2018, security expert Paul Bischoff warned that software companies such as Google collect user location information to sell to third parties, and smartphone users must turn off location tracking to protect personal privacy. . Bischoff also said that many software companies use IP addresses, advertising IDs and cookies to track users, storing details such as users’ online behavior, search history, purchasing habits, etc., which are sold to third parties. In addition, he also specifically reminded that some companies are very cunning, even if the user disables the location history, there will still be some small programs that collect location data, so the user must turn off all activity tracking on the web and apps.
- Smart Voice
Intelligent voice technology is also one of the important technologies in the digital age. Due to its advantages of high sensitivity and high efficiency, intelligent voice technology has been widely used in various scenarios such as smart home, medical care, and voice payment. Voice big data has gradually become an important information resource in today’s society. But at the same time, in the process of collecting voice big data, the personal privacy of users is also facing threats.
Take smart speakers as an example. Earlier, technology companies such as Google and Amazon were disclosed by the media that they used manual listening to the recordings of conversations between users and smart speakers, and the user’s communication was “monitored” in a sense. However, since artificial intelligence technology is not yet perfect in today’s society, high false wake-up rate and instability are still problems faced by all smart speakers. The user’s voice data is collected when the smart speaker is woken up by mistake, which largely violates the privacy of user communication (Daum, 2018).
- face recognition
In the digital age, face recognition technology has become a popular AI technology and has gradually entered people’s lives. The most commonly used AI applications by the public are “Face Recognition” unlocking, “Face Recognition” payment, “Face Recognition” Attendance check-in etc. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce believes that facial recognition technology has enormous potential to innovate in many areas, including transportation, hospitality, retail, and financial services (Acquisti, Gross & Stutzman, 2014). While face recognition technology brings convenience to people’s lives, it also brings risks and threats to personal privacy, property safety, and public safety. Data breaches involving facial recognition data increase the potential for identity theft, stalking and harassment. For example, Clearview AI, a US-based facial recognition company, suffered a data breach. The US-based startup grabbed about 3 billion face photos from multiple social networking platforms without users’ permission. Their main clients are law enforcement agencies, which can allegedly identify the faces of criminal suspects in seconds. The company faces a £17m fine after the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it had committed serious breaches of personal privacy and breached data protection laws.
How to protect your privacy in the digital age?
How to protect the personal privacy of each user to the greatest extent in the era of rapid development of digital technology is a question worthy of public consideration. I think this problem can be solved from three points: individuals, platforms, and governments.
The commercialization of big data and cloud computing is very rapid, and the rapid development of mining technology for commercial development of data information makes it impossible for the world to adapt quickly. This has led to the imperfect management system of digital information protection including technology, laws, and regulatory policies on this basis, including countries with developed social media. Facebook and Twitter in the United States have repeatedly been exposed to leaked information (Hoven, 2017). Among them, the most typical incident is the aforementioned “selling the private information of 80 million users to Cambridge Data Corporation to influence the election incident”. There are still many problems with Facebook leaking private information. Some platforms are not necessarily deliberately leaking, but the platform itself has not kept up with the technical security measures to prevent information leakage. Therefore, the platform must take relevant responsibilities. Customers, data, traffic and technology are all controlled by the platform. Whether the user’s private information is safe or not depends on how the platform acts. The platform should improve the supervision system as much as possible and improve the technology to protect privacy（Hiranandani, 2011）. At the same time, for individuals, each user on the Internet should also improve their awareness of self-protection, pay attention to protecting their private information, take appropriate self-privacy protection measures, and enable relevant protection settings.
In addition, with regard to the leakage of digital information privacy, relevant government departments should take action, and legislation should gradually follow up. In terms of digital information security legislation, the world is currently in a blank state (Sisk, 2016). Governments should establish and improve relevant laws and policies, and gradually explore digital information security protection laws that adapt to networks, big data, and artificial intelligence is the most important solution.
Conclusion
In the digital age, the gradual digitization of people’s personal information is an inevitable trend. With the emergence of various new high-tech technologies, there are various ways of people’s information leakage. It can be seen from the previous article that the typical ways are mobile phone positioning, intelligent voice, and face recognition. However, users’ privacy rights are increasingly violated on the Internet. As can be seen from the case of “Facebook — Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal” in this Blog, when users’ privacy information is illegally used by the platform, it will be threatened and have a great negative impact. Therefore, this issue needs to be solved through three ways, namely individuals, platforms, and governments. While digitalization brings great convenience to the public’s life, the public needs to pay more attention to the protection of data privacy.
References
Acquisti, A., Gross, R., & Stutzman, F. D. (2014). Face recognition and privacy in the age of augmented reality. Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality, 6(2), 1.
Bélanger, F., & Crossler, R. E. (2011). Privacy in the digital age: a review of information privacy research in information systems. MIS quarterly, 1017-1041.
Dance, G. J., LaForgia, M., & Confessore, N. (2018). As Facebook raised a privacy wall, it carved an opening for tech giants. The New York Times, 18.
Daum, T., Buchwald, H., Gerlicher, A., & Birner, R. (2018). Smartphone apps as a new method to collect data on smallholder farming systems in the digital age: A case study from Zambia. Computers and electronics in agriculture, 153, 144-150.
DeVries, W. T. (2003). Protecting privacy in the digital age. Berkeley Tech. LJ, 18, 283.
Hiranandani, V. (2011). Privacy and security in the digital age: contemporary challenges and future directions. The International Journal of Human Rights, 15(7), 1091-1106.
Hoven, J. V. D. (2017). Ethics for the digital age: Where are the moral specs?. In Informatics in the Future (pp. 65-76). Springer, Cham.
Sisk, E. P. (2016). Technical difficulties: Protecting privacy rights in the digital age. New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ. Confinement, 42, 101.