Photo Credit to Smart Cities World
In 2019 America, the concept of online privacy is almost entirely a thing of the past. Due to enhanced surveillance technologies, government and third-party spying, and everyone having a phone in their pocket; one could fairly easily track a person, then know their hobbies, interests, family records, and web search history.
With the rise in popularity of social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, users are willingly giving over their private information in the name of finding like-minded people. This is vastly wrong because these social media companies do not have secure servers, and they can be either purged or hacked by opposing governments or groups with ease. As a result, millions of profiles have had their private information leaked out into the public sphere.
Government spying on civilians is also to blame for the death of online privacy. Since the passage of the US PATRIOT Act after 9/11, the NSA, CIA, and FBI have been among a group of agencies tasked with gathering information on American citizens in the name of public safety. When teamed up with companies such as Facebook, the government's knowledge on average citizens is alarmingly high.
Is online privacy fully dead? For the most art, due to the ability to track an individual's online footprint and IP Address. While there has yet to be any widespread catastrophic misuse of this information by the government, it is not their right to have private information on the citizenry. If an individual were attempting to hide from the government, their efforts would be in vain due to the tracking power available through the internet.
Photo Credit to Smart Cities World.
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