As citizens of a world full of technological innovations, we are facing a major issue.
Technology, whether it be cameras, computers, phones, televisions or cars, has seen shocking exponential growth when it comes to complexity and what can be accomplished.
Considering the prevalence of technology, privacy has become a major concern.
With technology constantly evolving, where is the line when it comes to privacy?
Whether one refers to Facebook’s privacy breaches, changing regulations for online and personal privacy or the general paranoia of being watched by someone on the other side of your camera lens, it is clear that modern technology has brought up a plethora of unprecedented issues.
Although technology helps stop criminals and records evidence of crimes, the constant implementation of cameras and other technologies in our everyday lives will turn into a slippery slope that destroys Americans’ rights to privacy.
When our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, there was no such thing as television or computers.
Privacy issues relating to technology were nonexistent.
The Fourth Amendment states that people have the right to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizure.”
This sounded simple enough back then, but now we must ask ourselves how this amendment affects people’s privacy and security in the 21st century.
The real issue is the new laws and regulations that are slowly chipping away at our rights to privacy.
It is still illegal for security cameras to be placed in areas where privacy is expected, such as a restroom, but people have reported seeing security cameras in bathrooms anyway.
Clearly, technological privacy is a very gray area because of how unique the issue is, and this makes the strength and consistency of new laws difficult to manage.
Organizations are being hacked and privacy is being breached.
One such victim of this is SVSU.
Phishing scams often breach online firewalls, and hapless students and faculty alike fall victim to the scam.
In this day and age, everything is going digital, so all of our information is out there, just waiting to be broken in to.
To counter these breaches, SVSU is introducing Multi-Factor Authentication, which makes people use their phones to confirm that they really are who they say are when trying to access their online data.
As mentioned earlier, Facebook is infamous for privacy breaches.
It’s facing serious lawsuits due to the exploitation of millions of users’ online accounts.
The sad truth is that you cannot simply choose to not use this kind of technology.
Imagine living without a phone or computer. How are you to get anything done?
You certainly wouldn’t survive at SVSU, considering the use of Canvas, where all classes and essential information are stored.
When thinking of the Internet like a separate world, it is basically the Wild West.
People aren’t quite sure what it is like out there, and no firm laws have been implemented.
We are in the incipient stages of governing the Internet and what people use it for, but at the rate technology is growing, I’m not so sure we will ever have firm control over it.
There’s no doubt that technology is growing at an exponential rate.
Our rights to privacy are explicitly stated in the Constitution, but our Founding Fathers never had reason to consider what privacy would be like in an online world like today’s.
People are always using their phones to communicate.
When you look back at night and remember everything you did that day, most of it can probably be traced to online interactions rather than physical ones.
We have already begun to slide down the slippery slope of online privacy, and it’s up to us to take control before it’s too late.
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