Written by: Neil B Moorthy

Edited by: Saarth Vardhan

In today’s technological era, privacy is taken very seriously by almost everyone. Everyone wants their data to be safe, and to be kept to themselves and they should. Privacy is a fundamental human right recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Privacy is something that people need and for many people, it represents freedom. Keeping our information private is a form of freedom and there is no denying that. Most people are generally aware of the importance of data privacy in today’s landscape but are unsure to what extent their data must be kept private. People today seem to lack surety about the concepts of data and data security. These people constantly shed the spotlight on data collection and seem to be very pedantic of it. The question then arises that since most of the data is used for advertisement improvements, why do personalized ads become such a big issue?

People claim that companies or even the government may get their hands on their data, but this shouldn’t really be an issue unless one does something illegal.

Most of the people who criticize data collection by Big Tech companies end up exhibit hypocrisy in their criticism. These are the same people that blindly accept terms and conditions without even reading them but then complain about personalized ads. In a recent example of the ‘WhatsApp Data Sharing’ incident, the terms and conditions clearly explained that messages would not be read and that the application would only share the data of how much time you use the application/chat with people. It is also clearly established that the data WhatsApp previously shared to third-party companies would now go to Facebook and its apps, but many people assumed it read their chats and recorded them.

To paint a fairly accurate picture of what the world would look like without data collection by Big Tech companies, we’d need to imagine a world where Google would demand a monthly subscription and posting something on social media would require us to make a payment. The reality is, that these companies rely on advertisement services to a large extent to be able to earn money. Often, when our data is being shared with third-party companies, it is shared in bulk, or in other words, anonymously. In this manner, our personal information would be indistinguishable from that of the other users, making it relatively safe. A crude analogy would be to think of it as holding a very large knife handle that doesn’t have a blade.

For people who wish to maintain further anonymity on the Internet, they can use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to change their locations, a user agent switcher, or a proxy to mask their identities.

If someone wishes to stay hidden and anonymous to an even larger extent and possesses the technical know-how, they could use the deep web using Tor. To a large extent, the deep web is safe and works almost like a normal browser, and as opposed to the popular opinion, one does not get arrested for simply using the deep web. The dark and deep web is an entirely different and detailed topic of discussion which we could elaborate upon in a future article.

Data collection cannot be deemed malpractice unless it is used for the wrong reasons. Unfortunately, a large number of narrow-minded people misuse the paranoia and confusion that surrounds data privacy, even going so far as to politicize the issue to pursue their shallow interests. This misuse of the confusion surrounding data privacy must be strongly condemned. Instead, people should try and share their knowledge to educate and make people more aware of the reality regarding data security.

To conclude, data collection is a necessary evil which we need for efficient working of society but at the same time, it can also be harmful to the same society. It is a pertinent topic that will always be debatable as there is no universally accepted answer.

Each individual’s perspective and the transparency with which the Big Tech companies choose to work with the data will play an important role in shaping an answer to this incredibly difficult question!