{"id":23425,"date":"2018-10-25T17:33:06","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T16:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=23425"},"modified":"2018-10-25T17:33:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T16:33:06","slug":"companies-collecting-your-personal-info-are-you-mad-or-nah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/companies-collecting-your-personal-info-are-you-mad-or-nah\/","title":{"rendered":"Companies collecting your personal info &#8211; are you mad or nah?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>We live in a world where our personal information is not our own anymore. Just from apps,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/americas\/google-location-data-privacy-android-sundar-pichai-a8490636.html\"> companies know where we are at this moment<\/a>. Even stores offering free wifi in exchange for your email and social media details gain access to <a href=\"https:\/\/julysystems.com\/how-in-store-wifi-analytics-can-help-retailers-track-metrics-that-matter\/\">customers shopping habits<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cData is the new currency\u201d is the motto echoed in the tech industry. Data allows sites to enhance customer service, reframe marketing strategies and profit for data brokers. \u00a0But what these companies know about their consumers is more than what the consumers would like strangers to know about them. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It goes beyond names and email addresses. According to the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Trade Commission, \u00a0data brokers have a vast tract of data about your home, money, health, and more: \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The home you live in and how many years you\u2019ve lived there<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The credit cards you have and your credit score<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Bankruptcies and criminal charges<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> If you\u2019re married or pregnant<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even height and weight<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet, few seem to see to the moral and ethical dilemma of privacy being taken and monetised.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, called the practice \u201csurveillance\u201d and railed against the &#8216;weaponisation&#8217; of personal data with \u201cmilitary efficiency\u201d in a speech made at the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners in Brussels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The data debate intensified earlier this year when Facebook sold users&#8217; data to the political firm Cambridge Analytica. A line was crossed and the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">General Data Protection Regulation (<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">GDPR) changed the way businesses gather and handle consumer details within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">GDPR gives consumers the right to know the data companies have about them and obligates businesses to have better data management. It enforces penalties such as fines to business found guilty of data misuse. It<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0explains why when you visit almost any major website, a message pops up outlining\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the use of cookies, why they use them, and asking for your consent to use them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is an option to see the detailed use of cookie but not to decline the use of cookie. If you refuse, it\u2019s not guaranteed you can view the article. So, what do people in this scenario? Is the process increasingly resembling a monetary transaction, except this time you&#8217;re giving away personal information in exchange of getting access to content?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voice of London got to the bottom of this with a questionnaire.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The questionnaire, done both online and in-person, collected <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">people&#8217;s opinion and attitude about the practice of collecting personal information about users.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23459 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/10\/Screen-Shot-2018-10-25-at-4.05.53-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"698\" height=\"615\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The results show people don&#8217;t seem to mind companies knowing where and how they live. People have become accustomed to being monitored and there&#8217;s nothing they can do about it.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cook backs <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the tough privacy laws in both Europe and the U.S. and he listed the measures both companies and customers should take to combat misuse of personal data in a series of tweets. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Second, users should always know what data is being collected from them and what it\u2019s being collected for. This is the only way to empower users to decide what collection is legitimate and what isn\u2019t. Anything less is a sham.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Tim Cook (@tim_cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tim_cook\/status\/1055035543933849600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 24, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Third, companies should recognize that data belongs to users and we should make it easy for people to get a copy of their personal data, as well as correct and delete it.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Tim Cook (@tim_cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tim_cook\/status\/1055035546244911105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 24, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">And fourth, everyone has a right to the security of their data. Security is at the heart of all data privacy and privacy rights.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Tim Cook (@tim_cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tim_cook\/status\/1055035549512294401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 24, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\">This is a\u00a0feature of the 21st century. We\u2019re stuck in revolving glass door of protecting but no possible way of avoiding technology in our everyday life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Words by Earyel Bowleg | Subbing by Maria Campuzano<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We live in a world where our personal information is not our own anymore. Just from apps, companies know where we are at this moment. Even stores offering free wifi in exchange for your email&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":23467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,75,114,115,121,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-investigations","category-society","category-specials","category-tech","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}