9

Introduction

It is no secret that in the past couple decades that technology has increased exponentially. It seems like each year there is some new breathtaking device or form of technology that changes how we function everyday. These different types of technologies fundamentally change how we communicate with each other, how we receive data and information, and how we live our days. With all these positives there are bound to be some negatives, and in this chapter I will do a deep dive into the pro’s and con’s of the different types of new technology in our society. I will also give different tips throughout this chapter with different ways to keep your privacy in today’s society.

The world is ever evolving and with that the most recent step that society has  taken is the creation of the internet and all the other devices that work with it. The internet helps us keep in contact with friends and family who live hundreds if not thousands of miles away. It provides us with unlimited information whenever we need it and helps us meet so many new people. It is hard for most young people to imagine the world without the internet because of how much our daily lives revolve around it. But with all the benefits of the internet there are also some downsides, the biggest one is that we as a society have lost a lot of our privacy with the rise of technology.

In this chapter the topics I will be going over will be; Internet Cookies, Third Party Trackers, Location Services, Facial Recognition, and Social Media. As I go over each of these topics I will talk about how each of these technologies work and how they are used in everyday life. I will also talk about the privacy implications of each of these topics and how it affects you.

Internet Cookies

Internet Cookies are a relatively older type of technology that has been around for a pretty long time. Internet Cookies are short text strings that browsers and web servers send back and forth so when you go to different websites your personalized information is saved. Cookies lead to a more personalized internet experience, for example, with internet cookies certain websites will put ads on their site based on what you have previously searched. Websites use cookies to track, personalize, and save information about each user’s session. But with this it can lead to people finding your information, some malicious people can use cookies to spy on your online activity and steal your personal info.

Internet cookies are used for three main reasons:

• Session management.
• Personalization.
• Tracking.

Session Management is used for recognizing websites users and recalling their login information and preferences. Personalization is when websites use cookies to customize their website to their users liking by putting different advertisements on their website based on that user’s search history. Tracking is very similar to personalization because websites use cookies to track items users previously viewed allowing that website to suggest other items that they may like.

Cookies themselves are harmless; they can’t infect browsers with viruses or other malware but the real danger lies in their ability to track users’ browser history. Let’s talk about what cookies to watch out for. First off there are first-party cookies that are directly created by the website you are using. These are generally safer, as long as you are browsing reputable websites or ones that have not been compromised. There are third party cookies that are more dangerous though. They are generated by websites that are different from the web pages users are currently surfing, usually because they’re linked to ads on that page. This let’s advertisers or analytics companies track an individual’s browsing history across the web on any sites that contain their ads. This can lead to advertisers knowing exactly when and where you first looked for a specific item on the internet. The last and most dangerous type of cookies are “Zombie Cookies”, these cookies  are from a third-party and permanently installed on users’ computers, even when they opt not to install cookies. They also reappear after they’ve been deleted. And like third party cookies, zombie cookies can be used by web analytics companies to track unique individuals’ browsing histories. The most dangerous part about all of this is that not only can companies and other websites track your browsing history but malicious people can use them to spy on your online activity and steal your personal information.

In order to combat this one has to be smart about what websites they give permission to allow cookies. If you want to stop allowing cookies you can go on your phone or computer and first go into settings then go to privacy, once in privacy there should be an option to allow cookies or it might say “allow local data” which is the same thing. You can also remove cookies to help mitigate your risks of privacy breaches. This will also reset your browser tracking and personalization.  To remove cookies go back into settings on your computer or phone, go to privacy.  Then depending on what type of device you are using go to tools, internet options, or advanced. Then follow the prompts on the available options to manage or remove cookies. As helpful as cookies are it is important to protect your privacy while using the internet, and keeping a close eye on what cookies you allow is a great first step in reclaiming your privacy on the internet.

Third Party Trackers

With things like internet cookies it comes to no surprise to most people that our browsing data is being tracked by different companies. According to an article put out by Pew Research Center over 60% of Americans believe that it isn’t possible to go through daily life without being tracked. While it is hard to not be tracked through the internet at some point in life there’s definitely ways to minimize being tracked.

Third-party trackers track a user’s behavior, such as the content they view on that website and the things they click on. These third party trackers are everywhere for example, A research paper was put out in 2012 about third party trackers, it talked about how in 2011 websites like Epic Marketplace and Okcupid were exposing users data to third party trackers. These websites leaked all kinds of information to third party trackers from different personal information about the user like their names, age, sex and etc. But these sites also leaked their users’ interests and hobbies to the third party trackers. It is also well known that companies will do a deep dive on your browser history using third party trackers to make sure you will be the right fit for the company. Besides just looking your up on interet to find out more about your history they also will have third party trackers look at your internet history. Overall there are countless types of third party trackers that track your browser history and take personal information.

But if you want to take back your online privacy you need to first understand how these third party trackers work, some of them rely primarily on cookies to track your information but others track your browser history through web browsers like Google or Safari. These trackers follow your Digital Footprint, the information about a particular person that exists on the internet as a result of their online activity, in order to get information about you. In order to minimize your digital footprint you should first consider what browser you are using. Browsers like Safari and Google often keep track of their users’ browser history, and some people might say to go on to Incognito Mode or just clear your computer history. But all that does is erase your online activity on your computer, your browsing data is still on the internet it just no longer exists on your computer. Instead you should think about using browsers like “DuckDuckGo” or Tor Browser. These internet browsers let you browse the internet without tracking, surveillance, or censorship. Another way to combat third party trackers is to install a VPN or a “virtual private network” which allows you to browse the internet without being tracked by creating a private and secure network for you to use.

Location Services

Many apps and websites have location services so they can better personalize your experience while using them. That can range from GPS like Google maps, all the way to food apps like the McDonalds. What people tend to forget is that some of these apps are active in the background keeping track to every place you’ve been while they have been in the background. According to a New York Times article back in 2018, some apps can update up to 14,000 times in one day alone. Sending your personal location to their developer countless times in a day. With Satellite technology the developers know exactly where you are every minute of the day. The New York Times did a study on 20 apps that keep track of your location and found that 17 of those apps sent the exact latitude and longitude to about 70 businesses.

Now with the pandemic many countries are trying to use contact tracing in order to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. The way a majority of these contact tracing apps work is that they use GPS, which uses satellites to find the location of a person’s phone within a limited range, and low-wave Bluetooth, which can detect a person’s location within 30-40 feet. This way countries are able to keep track of who people with Covid-19 have been in contact with in order to get other people quarantined to stop the spread of the virus. While this has been an effective way to stop the spread of Covid-19 there have been some privacy concerns. It was found that some countries who initially started using contact tracing like Saudi Arabia used their citizens location data to keep track of their location and sold some of the data to different companies. Contact tracing is still very new and useful to stopping the spread of Covid-19, sending users location data to companies is unacceptable.

While location services often help a lot of apps and websites provide a more personalized and useful experience to their users you have to be careful with what apps you allow to use your location because some apps will send your location information to different businesses. A way to prevent this is to go into settings on either your phone or computer and go to location services. There you have the ability to toggle on and off  if certain apps and websites are allowed to use your location dn when they are allowed to use your location. While in location services you are also able to check how often these apps keep track of your location.

Facial Recognition

Facial Recognition is a newer technology that has recently taken over in the past couple years. It is used in iPhones to unlock and access personal data on your phone.  For example users are able to use their credit cards to purchase things using their “Face-ID”. Users are also able to purchase and download apps using their Face-ID and are able to log on to different websites and apps with their Face-ID. Apps like Instagram and Snapchat use facial recognition technology to apply filters on their users. According to a research paper done by University students apps and websites like Instagram and Snapchat store your facial recognition information. The government also uses facial recognition technology to keep track of different people of interest throughout the globe.

While you think that you might be safe using your face to keep personal information locked away, people can actually use facial recognition services to hack into your phone or laptop and access your personal data. The way that facial recognition works is it doesn’t go based on your face but it goes off of major points of symmetry in your face like your eyes, nose, cheek bones, brow, and jaw. People are able to write programs that emulate that same facial composition as a code and it sends it to your phone or computer which tricks it into thinking it’s you. While this is unnerving, something that is even scarier is that the government knows exactly what you look like based on facial recognition technology. It is important that you only use facial recognition services with trusted devices and apps so your information is not leaked to malicious sources.

Social Media

As of the last decade social media has taken off and became a major part of everyone’s life. It helps people stay connected with friends and family, and it was been a way to spread information very quickly. Different apps like Instagram and Facebook, often ask for you to enter your personal information in order to create a more personalized profile for you and to help your friends know more about your life. According to a report put out by Upguard in 2019,  approximately 540 million records about Facebook users were publicly exposed. Data put on websites like Facebook and Instagram doesn’t go away, so there always is a possibility of your information being stolen.

It is important to minimize what you share online with people on social media because people will always take advantage of you. For example you shouldn’t post pictures when you are away from your home if you have a large following on social media because it is proven that there are more break-ins to people’s homes if they post on social media when they are not home and on vacation. Also there are plenty of bots on social media like instagram that will keep tabs on different people’s accounts and they will alert business or other accounts when you post in order to try to steal information from you. So while social media is an amazing way to stay in touch with friends and family it is important not to share too much because you never know who is looking at your posts. And your information is often very susceptible to being leaked online by hackers.

References

What is an Internet cookie?” 1 April 2000. HowStuffWorks.com. <https://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/question82.htm> 5 November 2020

Li TC., Hang H., Faloutsos M., Efstathopoulos P. (2015) TrackAdvisor: Taking Back Browsing Privacy from Third-Party Trackers. In: Mirkovic J., Liu Y. (eds) Passive and Active Measurement. PAM 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8995. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15509-8_21

Auxier, Brooke, et al. “Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control Over Their Personal Information.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science &amp; Tech, Pew Research Center, 17 Aug. 2020, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-and-privacy-concerned-confused-and-feeling-lack-of-control-over-their-personal-information/.

A. Agarwal, R. Singh, M. Vatsa and A. Noore, “SWAPPED! Digital face presentation attack detection via weighted local magnitude pattern,” 2017 IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB), Denver, CO, 2017, pp. 659-665, doi: 10.1109/BTAS.2017.8272754.

Valentino-devries, Jennifer, et al. “Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Dec. 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html.

“Losing Face: Two More Cases of Third-Party Facebook App Data Exposure: UpGuard.” RSS, www.upguard.com/breaches/facebook-user-data-leak.

Mentor, Anzu Hakone and M. Chow. “From spam to medical identity theft : Exploring the vulnerabilities of Electronic Medical Records.” (2015).