Will there be blood? 🩸
Big Companies & Personal Data
The Internet of people 🗣️
In our fully digitalised corporate-led world, Data has become the biggest source of power. Personal data are used to train machines and algorithms about our habits, preferences, and patterns. They foster a market in which to have better (and most likely free) services we pay with our personal information.
To understand the magnitude of this exchange of information we can see how the worldwide internet adoption has changed in the last 25 years.
In just three decades the number of people connected to the internet went from from basically zero to almost 5 billion. Phones, Tablets, and Personal Computers (and also Fridges) now allow us to exist (and potentially be exposed) in the digital realm.
Personal data is often compared to oil — it powers today’s most profitable
corporations, just like fossil fuels energized those of the past.
- Wired
Despite being submerged in this data-exchanging network we rarely know what data we give away, and where that data ends up.
Pizza Time 🍕
In an article, the Wall Street Journal showed how much potential data we give away during a simple movie and pizza night, some data are directly provided from us to the companiesai, and others (the vast majority) are additionally collectedai.
[Move your mouse over the dots to precisely see what kinds of data are being collected]
Planning 📱
Two friends plan the night through Apple's iMessage. Messages are encrypted, so Apple never knows the words exchanged, but it can use other anonymous metadata to optimize server bandwidth.
Ordering the pizzas 🍕…
One friend orders the pizzas with the Domino’s app, which requires her to give payment information and, of course, the order details. While doing so Domino’s records a transcript of what she says.
…using the voice 🎙️
She access the app using an Amazon Echo, that creates a log of the interactions and records details about the user’s voice.
Driving there 🗺️
The other friend uses Google Maps to drive to her friend’s house. Google collects both traveling information and sensorial data from the phone and compares them with nearby drivers.
Being social 🤳
They take a selfie and upload it to Facebook, automatically recognizing the faces. This is a feature that they choose to enable, while as additional info Meta collects a bunch of the phone’s metadata, especially the ones related to location, in order to suggest nearby events.
The Movie 🍿
They buy a movie on Apple TV, they decide to rent the 2003 classic “The Room”. This information is going to be used to suggest similar films in the future, such as “Troll 2” or “Cruel Jaws”. In the process, payment information and bandwidth speed are saved as well.
This whole process ends up with at least 53
pieces of information given, directly or indirectly to different companies. 15 are directly
user-provided, while the remaining 38 are additionally collected by the companies.
Out of these 53 pieces of information, 23 are from Meta alone.
Data Regulation 🧑⚖️
Between us and the companies and organizations collecting our data, there are countries and policymakers. The deliberate use of our data by third parties is regulated by country-based legislation. According to the UN, out of 194 countries, 137 have legislation to secure data privacy.
Data Breaches 📉
A data breach is defined as any security incident in which unauthorized parties gain access to sensitive or confidential information, including personal data (Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, healthcare data) or corporate data (customer data records, intellectual property, financial information). [IBM]
In big tech, we trust (?)
When dealing with data online, we have to consider two main factors: value and reputation.
Value 💰
0
According to the IBM Data Breach Report of 2023 that’s the cost of a single stolen record.
While the average cost of a Data Breach is 4.45 Million dollars.
That's what your data is worth. It seems like we are talking about stock market values, with NASDAQ, Nikkei, or BitCoin gaining or losing value over time. But we are not.
This does not apply to private companies only; as I’m writing this article, on May 14th, 2024, The City of Helsinki’s educational and training departments were victims of a major data breach that potentially stole around 120.000 data belonging to pupils, guardians, and city employees.
These data are sold and resold to data brokers, firms that store huge amounts of data to be resold to marketers, investors, advertising companies, or privates. This can lead to various uses of one’s data: from extremely targeted advertising to more toxic and dangerous practices, such as Doxing: the unavailing of someone’s private and sensible information, such as the home address.
Reputation 💃
This leads us to our reputation era.
Whatever action you do online is going to build an indelible digital footprint, that will hunt you down forever. Deleting an Instagram account is a fairly easy task, but getting your data back from brokers is a way different kettle of fish.
Here’s a good thing: amongst the swirling sea of users roaming the internet everyday, ✨ you are unique.✨ (If you don’t believe that check this out).
And it’s this uniqueness that makes you stand out, allowing companies, marketers, and potentially harmful individuals to reach you with ease.
We put ourselves in the hands of big companies: our faces, our voices, and our thoughts.
But there are some ways in which you can reduce your digital footprint:
🙅
Delete or Deactivate Old Shopping, Social Network, and old email accounts
🙅
Remove Yourself from Data Collection Sites
️⚙️
Check Your Privacy Settings
🕵️♂️
Use Stealth or Incognito Mode (or Even Tor)
🙏
Ask for a Website to Remove You from a Database Directly
️📜
Use the GDPR Right to be Forgotten
️☑️
Finally, beware of Daft Surveys (Maybe knowing which Power Ranger you are is not worth it after all)