Privacy in the 21st Century - Life: A User's Manual

EE data breach 'led to stalking' Hey everyone! I was watching the news this morning and they actually discussed this on BBC news, I thought it would be interesting to add!  An EE customer was stalked by her ex-partner who accessed her private information through the company. The worker used his position to access her phone number, address, scanned drivers license (and other documents) and bank details. Back in February, her phone number and SIM card was corrupted. When contacting EE, customer service explained that her account and phone number had been registered at a new address, the address of her ex. This meant that her ex could receive all private phone calls and text messages sent to her. I just think its interesting what data EE had access to and how easily her ex-partner could access it. EE apologized for the actions and confirmed that this should not have happened because of the GDPR terms that were put in place last year for customers in the EU. The ex-partner di...

In this post I am going to write up the notes I made from our group meet-up earlier in the week. everyone has been independently thinking/reading/writing about privacy in the present day. From our very first discussion in the workshop hours last week it was clear how enormous this topic is and how important it would be to really focus our ideas into something achievable in a short space of time. The discussion began with suggestions of posters and leaflets that could be posted around Goldsmiths and the New Cross area, to generate awareness among people about how little attention is being paid to the fact that nothing is really private online anymore, and the problems of mindlessly clicking that we have read the "Ts & Cs". But the more we planned this idea, and the more we developed out topic, the less impactful this idea felt. After swapping notes, news articles and watching clips on youtube, we decided to focus our political energy even more into specifically the iss...

When brainstorming with the group on what the word privacy means to us in the 21st century, I remembered an essay I wrote in first year Introductory Economics. To sign up for most social media accounts whether Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram, it's free. However, in a capitalist neoliberal system where companies such as Facebook are profit-maximising, does 'for free' really exist? In economics, it's a straight forward no. As long as there are benefits, there are always costs. In this case, I might not have to pay with money to sign up for an account on Facebook, payment is a different currency. Privacy. In WoN, Adam Smith wrote "a certain propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another (1790,117)." Simply, I believe as consumers, we have exchanged our privacy i.e. our personal data for convenience. Facebook is one of the main technological companies on the market. When I sign up for a profile on Facebook, I'm asked to give Facebook my p...

A great video I found explaining the new data regulation rules in the EU and how they use and track your data from websites to give you advertisements and suggestions. GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation "GDPR sets new rules for how companies can treat user data.  Even if you don't live in Europe, companies are re-writing their rules for everyone , which is why you're seeing all those emails. The big difference is that the GDPR's idea of consent is a lot more intense than previous regulations, so companies have to ask for permission more often. Probably the most important change is how companies share data behind the scenes. Right now, visiting a single website might feed data that dozens of different companies can use, but the GDPR means that any company that gets that data second-hand will have to explain why they need it and what they're doing with it . "

Found this video from 2012 on the introduction of more CCTV to protect the public, similar to the most recent article I found on BBC News that I've attached below.  A few weeks ago, in my Modern Political Theory lecture, we touched on the topic of the "general will" through Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We did also talk briefly about CCTV and the idea of giving up some of our personal information as the general will in exchange for security.  We talk a lot about the idea of security and protection and what it meant to many political theorists.                  "For everyone to be given maximum security and liberty, each person gives himself to the new political association. This is not a sacrifice of freedom because each person is now an intrinsic part of the community or political association which is formed through the (social) contract. When we vote on a law, we must put aside our individual self-interest and think about th...

Hi Guys, this is the video I was talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDVBDOaPGtE There is a part of it that talks about LOVEINT which is the practice of NSA officers using their SPYING power for inappropriate behaviour violating completely our privacy, our intimate privacy. Check it out and comment your thoughts. By Antonia

What are the real Terms and Conditions? Here are the most shocking that we found: Kat and Antonia sat down to read through the entire Instagram Terms and Conditions that we all so frequently ignore and just hit "accept". After the changing hands of ownership of Instagram to become a part of the Facebook organisation, there have been a lot of shocking changes. As globalisation and interconnectedness increase, the concepts of our privacy online is diminished. Now that Facebook own Instagram "data shared by the user is collected and used in Facebook Products" They collect your all of you account sign in information and anything that you "message or communicate with others" such as your location, the location of a photo or even the date it was taken. Instagram can record camera settings and what you see through your camera, even things that aren't posted or saved There are systems in place not just to record this content but the analys...

Note By Antonia So far we have been brainstorming about what privacy means to us in today's world. A world of liquid modernity, surveillance and increasing individualism hunted by social media; and the need to express this individuality through these social tools. From a post on Instagram till governmental facial recognition methods in the street to monitor people. I did not pay much attention to what privacy meant until last year. I had a very nice Instagram where I post all my travels, my adventures living in different countries, my ideas and so on. However, in January 2018, starting my new life at uni, I wonder what would happen if I  just lived in the "real world" rather than partly online and partly offline. So I close down my Instagram. In this journey, I discovered many things, especially what privacy is and how important it became to who I am. The lessons I learn from this "experiment" vary from personal discovering to political analysis of vigilan...