Running head: TECHNOLOGY AND PRIVACY 1

Technology and Privacy Shawna Greiner SOC 120 Jenna Soard April 22, 2012

Technology 2 There was not such a thing known of as technology back in the beginning of time, but now technology has become the biggest thing used; it is so powerful throughout the world, that it is the number one thing used for just about everything in our everyday life. People have to have technology at a majority of their jobs in order to complete their tasks, Hospitals have to have it in order to take care of people and most of all keep track of files and records of people, government offices are the biggest one to have the technology that keeps all or a majority of information about every single human being that has lived. Another big technology that is done, but has been taken out of proportion is the internet and privacy. People that want to steal, take advantage of another person’s personal information, whether their social security number, physical address, work and income information along with credit, and bank accounts, then it is used to the person stealing it for their own advantage which later destroys the victim a lot of times. Technology has advanced to our own freedom, but it has also caused an unparalleled invasion of people’s privacy. Cell phones are so handy for using calling, chatting, GPS, email, internet, and more, but they are most certainly used for the federal people to find you wherever you are. The law has yet to catch up to our expectations of and need for privacy, even the new government initiatives and laws have severely undermined our rights in recent years. It is like the invasion of different things has taken such power and control over our society that the government cannot even control nor keep up with what is happening, which is where more trouble comes into the picture year by year. Ever since the September 11 attack on the trade centers in New York, security has become so tight and stricken that in airports today you have to take your shoes and socks off along
Technology 3 everything that is metal along with things being taken out of your pockets, even going through those body scanners, which invades your body privacy for there has even been cases where workers were taking advantage of making someone go through the scanner over and over just to look at the woman’s body, which is wrong. In main city, government buildings, you have to go through scanners along with the similar processes at airports. Even more biometric technologies are being developed since the 9-11 terrorist attack, finger prints being used in databases for financial matters along with moving over to the government and law enforcement authorities. Facial recognition in computer systems has become a big biometric too, and drawings/sketches that are to track down a criminal can a lot of time track down the wrong person that is innocent. “Further, in an attempt to paint a big picture that would at least sketch the contours of the full set of interactions and tradeoffs, the charge called for these analyses to take into account changes in technology; business, government, and other organizational demand for and supply of personal information; and the increasing capabilities for individuals to collect and use, as well as disseminate, personal information. Within this big picture, and motivated by changes in the national security environment since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the committee addressed issues related to law enforcement and national security somewhat more comprehensively than it did other areas in which privacy matters arise.” There has been plenty of cases were someone has been wrongly accused for sketches being miss drawn and/or a person guesses who and what they saw, but it is not actually the right person that did the crime, therefore the innocent is put into prison or executed and later on is when the law enforcement or investigators’ find out they had accused the wrong person and then their life
Technology 4 has been wasted. There was a case recently on the news where these two innocent blacks guys were released from prison after quit a couple a years, for it was facts later that pointed out they were not guilty of committing a crime and someone else that actually had done that crime was already in prison for another case, crime. It is sad because technology does not always prove to be truthful or a promising thing that people are pushed to believe in or about. Background checks on the internet, have been a big deal for awhile; “Previous sections describe what can happen if data files contain erroneous information. This situation is particularly harmful to job applicants when background checks uncover wrongful criminal records and other inaccurate data. Unless the employer notifies the job applicant of the contents of the investigation, that individual may not learn why he or she was rejected. Federal law requires such disclosure (Fair Credit Reporting Act). But the law contains loopholes that the employer can use to avoid notifying the applicant that negative information in the background investigation resulted in their not being hired.”(Sec 8) A lot of these web sites or brokers are scams and asked a onetime payment or different amount of payments for how much additional information you want. Some of these are not even actually updated to the current time it being search as well, therefore it is just a waste of your time and money. Very few of these sites are reliable and accurate, which will get used by employers and the government to check peoples background, but even the more reliable ones can be incorrect or misleading therefore it can interfere with the person trying to get a job, or other things a person is applying for or trying to get.

Technology 5 Chatting sites like Facebook, MySpace, Skye, Twitter, YouTube and more are used and looked at by employers, management, the government, law enforcement and of course people stealing other people information. A lot of time this is how the law tracks down a criminal by what they spew out on chats and messages of their own actions for some people like to brag about what they did even though it was wrong. Employers like to look at how much a person is on Facebook or the other similar sites and what they say on their page, how much information they put out about themselves. For some people do not even think nor care about putting their personal information of their whole date of birth, phone numbers, address, kids names, email address and more, which is where they can put their own selves into a disaster in the long run. It has been all over the news this last year how a lot of jobs now days and their bosses are wanting your user name, plus your password that is supposed to be your own privacy business for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and more sites. In our society today, for it now being the last couple of years, maybe even a century by now has been becoming more and more of an invade to our own lives and privacy. It just keeps being one thing to another that is making this life more about control and less freedom. “In the past few decades, privacy has been the rallying cry against another family of technologies: computer based digital electronic technologies that have hugely magnified the power of human beings over information. We are able, individually and in groups (organizations, institutions, societies), to gather, store, communicate, analyze, play with, and use information in historically unprecedented ways.”

Technology 6 Your privacy is not private no matter where you are, you can be in your house, backyard, vehicle, at work, in a store or a restaurant, at an event and you will never have complete privacy. People can put devices on your car, put like wiretaps to your conversation whether by phone or telegraphing, even things on your home to try and listen to what you are saying; so no matter where you are, always be careful of what you say or write down and it being visible because there is someone that will being watching you and you do not even realize it! Our younger generation is so much more at risk of what is to happen that will destroy their future, for some of them and actually so many more than ever in history are doing the bad, dirty work onto others and some of them are being used to do the job as well. The generations of today are all about taking and destroying compared to the older generations’, which sad, but true and it just keeps getting worse. When it comes to trying to take care of your own personal business, a lot of times it is taken for granted due to you having to give out your full name and/or social security number just to do something or even getting a quote for something you are trying to do or get a better deal out of, which later that can interfere with your credit score. Privacy has remained exclusive as a concept and will most likely continue to be as well as liberty and freedom. “The United States, even though it is at the leading edge of privacy protection, belongs to an active, congregational tradition. The term ‘‘privacy’’ implies withdrawal, and any suggestion that withdrawal has intrinsic value falls on deaf ears in this tradition. Withdrawal may have had value in itself in other parts of the world at other times, but in America the value of a withdrawal is measured by

Technology 7 the usefulness of the return. As a result, many Americans resist the idea that privacy has intrinsic value. They are more open to the idea that it has instrumental value but remain uncertain about why this is so— even as they demand it.”(P 6) Privacy and freedom has been an issue throughout time and will continue to be a problem due to the government, politics and the laws that get passed to do business that is part of life along with the newer technology systems that get made and passed to use.

References
Waldo, J., Lin, H., Millett, L. (2007) Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age
Washington, DC. : National Academies Press, Retrieved from; http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ashford/Doc?id=10180651&ppg=40 Givens, B. (2001) Privacy Today: A Review of Current Issues
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC), San Diego, CA. (Revised April 2012) Retrieved from; http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/Privacy-IssuesList.htm Nissenbaum, H. (2009) Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life
Palo Alto, CA. Stanford University Press, Retrieved from; http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ashford/Doc?id=10364959&ppg=36 McLean, D. (1995) Privacy and Its Invasion
Westport, CT., Greenwood Press
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ashford/Doc?id=10005646&ppg=16