Personal Privacy
In the face-to-face environment, we take for granted that we can control our “privacy settings.” That is, if we don’t wish for someone to read what we are writing, we may slant the computer screen, or cover the paper on which we write. If we don’t wish to be widely heard, we might whisper.
On the Internet, there is no such thing as a whisper. In fact, we are living in an age of broad monitoring – call it surveillance society, or voyeurism, or cyber eavesdropping, we are aware of watching, and of being watched.
Using your learning from the Online Persona challenge as context, we can see how protecting personal privacy in the digital age has widespread implications for identity – perceived, authentic, and otherwise. How many of us, though, really think about the “privacy policies” of a given company before we make an online purchase? Do we know what the privacy settings are on all of our social media sites? Do we understand enough about how a given tool “grabs” and then repurposes information, and what that all might mean about our relative privacy?
This topic is vast and deeply researched, both in traditional research journals, and on the Web.
Here is a comprehensive site, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse Links to an external site., on which you will find many specific areas of interest with response to online privacy. The site is offered by Privacy Right Clearinghouse, which identifies as “A California nonprofit corporation with 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. Our mission is to engage, educate and empower individuals to protect their privacy. We identify trends and communicate our findings to advocates, policymakers, industry, media and consumers.”
A quick glance through this site will raise many issues attached to the overall topic of Internet privacy. For example, what happens when survivors of domestic abuse wish to erase social media presence so as to remain safe?
Please especially focus on Fact Sheet 18 Links to an external site. which discusses online privacy in general. Under #1, you will see a bullet for “social networking.” When reading this, follow the link provided to the social networking privacy information (Fact Sheet 35 – Social Networking Privacy: How to Be Safe, Secure, and Social Links to an external site.)
Image Credit: The Word Privacy Being Erased by Alan Cleaver, CC-BY