What defines privacy is constantly evolving in these modern times. Smart phones, live streaming video chats, family safety tracking apps and smart home devices have made life much easier. But the flip side of these devices mean that GPS location tracking, microphones and cameras accessible via most any wireless devices have made “living off the grid” an impossibility. Reasonable expectations of privacy have become the subject of debates ranging from our nation’s highest courtrooms to the family kitchen table.
As you read this article, for instance, there are currently 2,000 satellites orbiting in the skies above us. By 2025 as many as 1,100 satellites could be launching each year, including SpaceX’s Starlink plans to add 12,000 small satellites by 2027. These satellites are being created and launched to provide everything from weather monitoring to global GPS positioning to boosting internet accessibility and taking pictures of every angle of the Earth.
This is just one part of how technology is not only changing the face of modern living, but also the basics of personal privacy. If you’re concerned about your privacy online, and how modern technology is making it easy to track everything from your grocery purchases to the dates and times you visit Starbucks to your Amazon purchases, your concerns are in line with everyone else.
One of the newest privacy invaders that are still flying under most people’s radar are mobile apps. Apps are a rapidly growing market, with the industry expected to be worth $101 billion by 2020. Even though they are useful or entertaining, what people tend to forget about is that all apps, even the free ones, require an exchange of information to use them. And industry oversight studies have found that those apps are not respecting their users’ privacy.
A company called Appthority found that 95% of the top 200 free IOS and Android apps had privacy violations built in; including tracking location of the user, identifying the user, and accessing contacts of the user, all without express permission. Another security analyst company, SourceDNA, found that hundreds of apps were deliberately ignoring the Apple privacy policy on data collection by sharing personal information from app users with third parties.
Technology is not going away, therefore privacy issues will continue to be something to keep in mind as we go forward. The best thing we can do at this point is be diligent in staying informed, mindful, and active in doing what we can to protect the security of our homes and families. Here are a few articles to help you get started:
- Election security concerns for 2020
- Collection #1 data breach
- How to tell if you’ve been “phished” and what to do
- How Facebook hacking affects us all
- How to protect your home wireless network
- How to create strong passwords
- Tips to avoid identity theft online
- How AT&T plans to use private customer information
Here at Softcom, we value the privacy of our customers and we do not share any part of it outside our company without a valid court order. We don’t use it for advertising, marketing, or anything of the sort. That’s our guarantee to you. To read our full privacy policy, you can click HERE, where you’ll see what kind of data we collect and how it is used. The bottom line is that everything we do is with a singular focus: to give you, our customer, the best possible high-speed internet experience available, without worry about the safety of your personal information.