The Importance Of Digital Privacy
In this era of almost open privacy, the emergence of the Internet has actually brought us more than convenience. From the article Policy Brief on Privacy, Internet Society website mentioned that personal data has become a profitable commodity. People often unknowingly share their personal information when browsing the Internet (Internet Society website, 2015). I have a deep understanding of the author’s view. After I returned to China, every time I parked in the mall, the mall would compulsorily request the mobile phone to scan the QR code to pay. At the same time, on your payment page, you must enter your mobile phone number to get a verification code before you can pay. This is actually a typical example of privacy violation. In this situation where parking fees must be paid, businesses can easily obtain your mobile phone number information. Therefore, it can be seen from this phenomenon that personal information security is actually not guaranteed in China. But at the same time personal information is very important. Because with the continuous development of technology, virtual payment is now the norm, and people no longer need to carry cash with them to shop or consume. So personal information is very important. Because once you lose control of the information, then the security of our personal assets cannot be guaranteed.
At the same time, code is also one of the symbols of this new era. It consists of countless codes spliced together, and then used algorithms to connect them to form our current virtual world. But the emergence of algorithms is also pros and cons. In the article Code-Dependent: Pros and Cons of the Algorithm Age, authors Lee Rainie and Janna Anderson mentioned that one of the advantages of algorithms is that they can help humans or machines get better Make reasonable judgments. But one of its disadvantages is that when the entire society relies on digital algorithms, then when society needs to make important judgments, overly rational algorithms will lose humanity and human judgment (Rainie & Anderson, 2017). From my personal point of view, I believe that the negative impact of algorithms on society and individuals is greater than the positive impact. Because when algorithms are needed for all social operations, the society becomes too rational and loses humanity. If we are rational when we judge anything, then in the end, maybe the machine will judge human life very casually. Then society will become terrible by then.
In this week’s study, I was most surprised that our digital privacy is actually being taken away step by step. Because, first, every action we make on the Internet is actually being monitored. For example, when we watch some illegal content on the Internet, the Internet police are likely to come to the door. Second, our network information has been stolen all the time. For example, when I want to buy something many times, some apps will be promoted. This is a potential information theft.
The case I found is the author Carrie Wells’ article Maryland universities to use data to predict student success — or failure. Link: https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-college-analytics-20160611-story.html I think this article is very irritating but it is true. This article mentions that the University of Maryland uses student data to evaluate student success and failure. I think it’s foolish to use data to evaluate a student’s success or failure. Even if some students are not very good at learning or some social data, they can be successful in other fields.
Resources:
Policy Brief: Privacy. (2018, April 27). Retrieved October 09, 2020, from https://www.internetsociety.org/policybriefs/privacy/
Rainie, L., & Anderson, J. (2020, August 06). Experts on the Pros and Cons of Algorithms. Retrieved October 09, 2020, from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/02/08/code-dependent-pros-and-cons-of-the-algorithm-age/
