Privacy Online and Off

The overall message of all the TED Talks are about the importance of cyber safety and our overall privacy when it comes to the use of technology. The first TED Talk I watched by Juan Enriquez: Your Online Life, Permanent As A Tattoo was intriguing yet creepy. The video was interesting, yet creepy because of the comparison he made about tattoos and our digital footprint following us forever. I had always known our digital footprint always existed, however it was shocking to hear him also talk about the scope of how much our personal information is openly available to the public like our credit cards, our public records, and much more private information.  

The issues discussed in all the TED Talks are very important, but it is very scary to know that anyone and even the government has such easy feasibility in finding our private information and keeping it for their own personal agenda.  The issues of privacy that came up in all the discussions are important to highlight that technology is an important tool in our lives. However, to protect ourselves from further invasion of privacy, we can make efforts to use the encryption software already on our devices that was pointed out in Christopher Soghoian’s TED talk: How to Avoid surveillance...with your phone in your pocket.

In closing, after watching all the different TED Talks about how we essentially have no digital privacy, I want to make one more important note that comes from Darieth Chisolm’s TED Talk: How Revenge Porn Turns Lives Upside Down. She made the statement “Our cyber civil rights are at stake.” I believe this statement she made is so crucial to our use of the internet and mobile devices, and how more protections should be in place. For example, the government should work to enact a law that strictly protects our internet data from being sold, viewed, or hacked from foreign entities and companies that would use the data for any negative purposes .