We’ve been told repeatedly that TikTok is a security and privacy risk, meanwhile, our most sensitive information is being shared right under our noses with no repercussions. Every time I hear someone bring up TikTok as a national security threat, I see that as a deflection.
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If you consider who has the greatest information on your habits and lifestyle, it’s probably a business like your credit card company or your cell phone provider or ISP. It’s someone who has a choke point on your data and/or purchases. It feels like an impossibility to get regulations (that work) to limit data collection, and it seems impossible to live in a modern world without a data trail, so I wonder if the result won’t end up being some sort of system like credit reporting, where you can get access to the data collected on you, and a list of who is accessing it, in some attempt to give the end user some sense of control, or maybe at least compensation. I question if you knew that it was your credit card and grocery store that were providing the most “acted on” information about you if you would change your behaviour? Would you give up on the price discounting of the grocery store discount program… or would you give up on the rewards (or cash back) from your credit card to have less privacy invasion by marketers? When it comes to data collection and privacy invasion, I can’t decide if it is inevitable or if it just feels like it is.
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I think it’s inevitable because the average user is far more accepting of bartering their information rather than their cash. The aversion we (sophisticated enthusiasts) have to this alternate type of currency is not shared by the mainstream. I hear passing comments from “normals” about how creepy it is when targeted advertising is super obvious, but witness absolutely zero resulting behavior change even when smacked in the face by such privacy incursions.
Maybe there is a tipping point, where info brokers take a step too far for the mainstream populace to tolerate, but I don’t know what that tipping point could be. It wasn’t Equifax spilling our info all over the net in 2017 - it wasn’t Twitter selling our MFA phone numbers for ad revenue in 2019 - it wasn’t even Cox Comm openly admitting to listening to users thru embedded mics this year.
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I am wondering whether we’ll have another Edward Snowden moment that will tip the scales.
The GDPR and the Banking Secrecy help in Europe.
It is illegal for banks and credit card companies to use your purchase data to target you with offers and it is illegal for them to share that information with third parties without a valid court order (i.e. with the police, tax office etc.). There is an exception for loan payments, where defaulting on a load is handed to Schufa for credit scoring, but they can’t sell your information either, they can only give an aggregated credit score.
Likewise, GDPR means that the ISP and cellphone provider can’t keep any information on you that isn’t billing relevant, unless the authorities give them a court order to keep the information - and that is then information collected after the issuance of the court order. Again, they can’t sell that information or share it to third parties without your explicit, written permission.
It even goes as far as voice recordings on telephone calls, you have to announce up front you are recording and for what purposes - if you say “for training purposes”, you can use it to help better train helpdesk staff, but you can’t use it for sales and marketing, for example, or even in court and you definitely can’t sell or share the information gathered in the conversation or a recording of the conversation.
You can ask any entity to provide you with all information they have on you - they have to provide it in a timely manner, for free and in a machine readable format (i.e. they can’t throw a thousand pages at you, they have to provide it as a digital document - spreadsheet, PDF, text document etc.).
But big business has feasted on this information in America for too long to give it up without a fight, and they can afford more lobbying money than individuals or action groups, like the EFF.
Our local store has a “loyalty” card system, but it is not registered to you, so if you pay cash, they can’t track you, and the cards are available at the checkout, so if you are paranoid, but want the discounts, you can pick up a new card each time you purchase something and throw it away when you leave the store.
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Interestingly, my wife is what could be called a Luddite. She got her first computer in 2007, so her teenage children could do their homework on it. Her first smartphone was my old iPhone 3GS in 2013. We had Android phones for a while, but she hates technology, is always on the verge of throwing the remote through the TV when adverts are shown - she keeps saying, she wants to go back to just the 4 channels we used to have, without any adverts (run through the TV license scheme).
But she came to me in 2018 and asked if I could de-Google her Android phone, because she didn’t want them following her. Likewise, she refuses to use social media for similar reasons and actually dropped WhatsApp for Signal, when it was pointed out in the news, that the contact information was gathered and sent to the Facebook servers in the USA.
At parties, she regularly says, “no photos of me on social media!” (Legally binding in Germany.)
I am tech savvy and do all I can to minimise my footprint, without making it too inconvenient - all Meta properties and about 2.5 million tracking and advertising domains are blocked on my home network - but my wife, not being tech savvy, wants that level of security for herself, without me prompting her that it would be a good idea.
So, maybe there is some hope?
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If app tracking transparency proved anything, it’s that given an easy way to opt out, people choose to do so.
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I would not call your wife a Luddite. What you are describing is a person who is sensitive about their privacy, and sometimes feels uncomfortable with technology but is not actively against it as long as their privacy is protected.
All in all a sensible person in my opinion.
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Back in the 1990s I was working for a company that implemented an electronic loyalty card scheme for a retailer. What I heard about the retailer’s intention regarding the data they would be able to harvest about the customer put me off the idea for life. As a result, I’ve never had any loyalty card.
A lot of the time I find I can match the loyalty-card discount with a non-loyalty price at another retailer - I think some of them do short-term discounts matching a rival’s card discount, and that’s when I often stock up to carry me over to the next flash discount, product expiry dates permitting.
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Interesting that the US govt is requiring banks to provide data on people in the US, and we are worried about Tiktok? Although I am not a fan of that either
And then there are people/parents like myself. Several yrs ago, when my #hardheadz were roughly 12 and 10yrs old, the school asked all parents if photos of student could be taken and shared on the district social media channels. I approved. Many parents yelled at me about that among other things. I totally get why parents didn’t want their children featured. Personally, I KNEW my children would be popular and successful in extracurricular stuff. I felt the should be recognized far and wide for future reference. I knew the newspapers would always (positively) write about them. Basically, I knew that a large portion of their life would be public. Granted, we’ve all discussed privacy and managing it as best we can while allowing some things to be publicly known. Not spouting out happy birthday or anything like that, but will tell out congratulations on being recognized as a good student and athlete. There’s a balance.
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I agree, and there is a big difference to being photographed at a party and to being officially photographed at public events.
I think it very much comes down to keeping private and public lives separate. The discussions with the kids is also important, they need to understand what negative publicity is and how photos or videos of them acting inappropriately can affect them in the future.
If they still make a fool of themselves in public after that, that is their lookout, at least they were warned. Too many parents go either complete helicopter or don’t care at all, what happens to their kids. It sounds like you and Queen Pruitt have found a sensible middle ground.
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As long as you control your data, you can provide or refuse permission and that is fine.
The owner of the data should have the control in full transparency. No hidden tracking and no manipulation. If they want to release something to the public that is their choice and yes it can be a good thing if it’s controlled.
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