Yes – Data Is Collected by Internet Businesses
Do you know how many apps you have on your phone? How about how much money is in your bank account, or the last time you got a speeding ticket? [Because of this line, I googled “how to make an Android app” and this result popped up.
These are all pieces of data that we put online and share with businesses without thinking twice. Businesses need that information to be able to sell their products and services; they then use it to convince us that we need whatever it is they’re selling.
When people think about protecting their privacy online, two big issues come up: targeted advertising and identity theft. In the wake of the NSA spying scandal, people are also thinking about government surveillance. Many people believe that companies don’t care about your personal information—that they just want to sell you stuff.
While it is true that businesses need your data to sell their products and services, there’s more to it than that. The businesses actually want as much of your data as possible—including the things you would never dream of telling them—so they can get an edge on their competition.
Targeted advertising is one way to get an advantage over others in your industry. If you know everything there is to know about a specific group or individual, then you can tailor ads specifically for them; this increases the chances of clicking on an ad and thus increases sales.
Many companies purchase and aggregate data from a wide variety of sources and use it to create dossiers for their customers. This allows businesses to easily see what products you looked at online without buying, which charitable organizations you donate money to, and whether or not you’ve been arrested in the past.
The second way businesses get an edge is more nefarious: crime prediction. All the data that is collected by businesses can be used to make predictions about what people will do in the future; this information could be used by insurance companies trying to sell more policies, banks seeking new loans, or law enforcement agencies trying to prevent crimes before they happen.
A company called Hitachi Kokusai Electric uses mathematical models and publicly available data to predict where crimes will happen. The company claims that this system has reduced crime rates by as much as 20% in Japan. According to the model, people are most likely to commit a crime when the moon is full and they’ve consumed alcohol. Hitachi plans to use this information to sell its technology to other businesses around the world. Even in Spain, where there is a fairly high crime rate and although strict security laws – https://vpntesting.com/best-vpn/spain
The NSA also uses data collection methods for crime prediction purposes. They track phone calls, emails, credit card purchases, text messages, social media posts, travel habits, online browsing activity, facial recognition software, video surveillance systems, GPS devices, medical records, bank records … pretty much everything you do on your computer or your phone is collected and stored away somewhere even if you aren’t suspected of a crime.
Today, businesses are tracking people in a way that would’ve been unimaginable twenty years ago. The NSA is doing the same thing on a much larger scale. As this trend continues, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain privacy. While there are many benefits to all this data collection, the dark side of the equation needs to be seriously considered before we sign away our rights to our information.
