Personal information belongs to you, not to Facebook, Google, Hyves, or other social media platforms. Yet, we've been giving it away to them for years, without fully realizing the potential indirect consequences that may arise in the future. In my opinion, there are still many people who don't fully understand that they can use these social media platforms for free, but at a cost.
This is a translated article using https://ppq.ai. Source: https://sebastix.nl/blog/we-geven-alles-weg.
Many people have an indifferent attitude towards the fact that we're massively giving away information about ourselves. "I have nothing to hide" is a common argument among Generations Y and Z. The documentary "What about privacy" by VPRO illustrates this well. However, a report by the ECP concludes that nearly 70% of all Dutch people have problems with companies storing or registering their data. Privacy has become a catch-all concept, and everyone should define its meaning for themselves. In my experience, privacy is inextricably linked to insight and control.
Secure
I can now choose to outline various "what if" scenarios about all sorts of problems, but in my opinion, this doesn't concretely reflect the current issues. The problems are increasing and are fueling a discussion about online privacy that is becoming more relevant by the day. The people at Bits of Freedom can confirm this like no one else. Anyone who takes a critical look will see that there's daily news about these problems and the accompanying discussion. Organized hacks and data leaks that expose the personal data of tens of thousands of people, employees who share things unrelated to their work but still get fired by their employers, photos on Facebook that are used by companies in their media campaigns, companies that sell "anonymized data" to the government: all examples of how our online data is being used unintentionally by others. Also, see how the "Black Book of Data Leaks" is being updated at an accelerated pace.
Labyrinth
Does anyone among us have any idea how much personal data is floating around, in which third-party databases we're listed, or in whose address book we appear? It's not self-evident that we have the right to access this information, as the dossiers of Rejo Zenger clearly show. Moreover, you have to wonder how difficult it would be to remove yourself from such a database. Try to investigate how complex this whole system is. Or use this visualization tool from The Wall Street Journal to see how the largest websites archive your browsing behavior and in what way. Could it really be that all Dutch people are listed in a database of an English marketing agency? Do you ever wonder how many profiles you have on the internet? My Lastpass currently indicates that I have 243 login credentials for various websites. That would mean that I, Sebastian Hagens, might exist dozens of times. Potential solutions like OpenID have been written off, but there's a social sign-in trend visible, where you derive your identity from a popular social media profile. If you use this, you'll see that you often have to fill in even more data, and then we're back to square one.
Product You
Back to social media and the internet. The power of social media taps into our social needs. We're social animals and always will be. That means we need social contact and well-being (with some exceptions). We love attention, and via social media, it's easier than ever to get it. Through this route, it's possible to record this behavior on a massive scale for the first time in history! Where our governments have been trying to do this in public spaces for decades (Big Brother is watching us), this is now happening unknowingly and automatically thanks to the internet. The large internet companies that quickly understood this principle have become very wealthy in a short time. Control over and knowledge of insights into this behavior are therefore very valuable, as can be seen from the valuations of large internet companies like Facebook and LinkedIn. We're giving everything away and have lost control over all our digital possessions. In exchange, we can use services and products from third parties for free (let it be clear; I'm a fanatical Google user because their products simply do what they promise). We're the product, and the price being paid for it isn't directly felt. Given the cleverness of all companies that want to know as much as possible about you, a considerable "privacy bomb" could explode in the long run. As soon as we feel the hangover, things will really start to change radically. It's relatively easy to buy personal datasets from various parties and then merge them into a system to generate rich profiles. Where is the limit on whether or not this can be traced back to a person? Who monitors this internationally? We can't rely on the CBP (Dutch Data Protection Authority). The legislation in this area is at least 15 years behind, so companies have free rein to do what they want with our personal data. Personal data is becoming increasingly centralized in various locations, with Facebook being the largest. A world where personal data is centralized on an individual level is the opposite. However, we don't yet have access to easy-to-adopt tools to start with this. If every individual gains insight into and control over their data, it automatically means that various online privacy problems are solved, and a new generation of applications can emerge. The end-user controls and has insight. From that insight, they can exert influence that fits their needs, wishes, or interests.
In a next article, I want to take you into a world where it's normal to earn money with a system using someone else's information. Many companies do this and earn a lot of money from it. However, it's essential for every user to break this system. The importance of remaining the owner of your data and creating value for yourself with it. In the third and final article, I'll elaborate on this using a personal graph and a new digital landscape.