Article 21 in the Indian constitution tells us the people have the right to Privacy  but  my  question  is  your privacy is really controlled by you or someone else?

Think about this…

Firstly, we must understand privacy word. Privacy word has many meanings but in most general, it means freedom from interference or intrusion. In other words, we can say a person should have the right to take decisions on their own.

Now a time people know the privacy word but didn’t know how to protect themselves from being controlled by big firms like Amazon, Mi cloud, etc. The people need to know when they are allowing someone to access their gallery or contact what they are losing and what the firm is gaining. By the end of this article, I am sure you will have a better understanding of how to take better decisions to protect yourself from being controlled.

What are different types of privacy?

There are many types of privacy but in this section, I am categorizing privacy into two different categories.

1.     Personal Privacy:

This is the privacy of a person who can take their own decision. Personal privacy contains the data of a single person which is being created by himself/herself for himself/herself.

2.    Industrial Privacy:

We looked into personal privacy but we also know the different firms also have their data as well which they didn’t want to share with anyone else. This type of privacy comes under industrial privacy.

Let’s see how we are compromising our privacy with some examples

Information Privacy – Your friend played a game on his mobile and ask you to play it at least once. You think if he suggested it then it must be good and you installed it on your mobile now when you started the app it asked for some permissions like gallery, contacts, run on backend, etc. Now more than 90% of people gave access without thinking about why a game needs this permission but some people also think these help companies to personalize their products for us and they permit the app.

Personal behavior privacy – Next time you go on a website and now the website asked you for accepting the cookies. These cookies are not the same as the food item you ate but are the opposite. It stores all the data like – the product you like, your clicks, etc, and we think it helps you to get some better recommendation so that manual work decrease to order your favorite product.

Information Privacy – Now suppose you got a mail from someone saying “harry! iPhone in Rs5000 just click on the below link to register for next stock”. The person who has not much knowledge will click on this and enter his name, email, and phone number. People think if the website is fake still the phone number and email id will not cost anything from them.

See the outcome of the above three examples then think yourself.

1. In 2018 App Install Farms contributed 42% of total ad fraud, Click Spam & Ad Stacking – 27%, and Click Injection – 30%.
2. Global cookies market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 43% during the forecast period (2022 – 2027)
3. US FTC received 12,491 complaints of government impersonation and 8,794 complaints of business impersonation related to the pandemic in Dec, 2021.

Have you seen if you visited a website searched for a watch and then visited any other website that starts showing the watch in the recommendation?

Have you checked your email today? You must see some of the emails coming from those websites where you have never registered.

Getting Bored? – Let’s jump to a more technical world

Let’s jump to a website and find what first thing we encounter. Are you ready? Here is the word…

Cookies:

Cookies are the physical objects those help advertisers send targeted ads based on your specific data captured from your online activities. Some of the cookies make browsing the internet better while some are harmful to your device.

Cookies are of two types:

1. Session cookies: These are cookies that allow a website to see your daily activity on that website. Like where you are clicking or giving personal information,
2. Super cookies: These cookies come under third-party cookies. However, it is difficult to identify as they can be attached to banner ads within the site as well.

All we know is malicious software is not able to transfer using cookies but it’s critical that some malware and viruses may be disguised as cookies.

Cloud Services:

Cloud services are the way to store the data on a server that is not hosted on your local machine. The use of cloud services allows customers to access software, cloud storage, computing power, and other services.

Types of Cloud Services:

SAAS: This is called software as a service. This means we are using cloud-hosted software without doing any coding. Example: Gmail app

IAAS: Infrastructure as a service is a basic foundation of the cloud it involves the offer of virtual and physical infrastructure and networking features. Example: Azure Virtual Machine

PAAS: Platform as a service is the provision of on-demand tools for developing software applications through a web-based online environment. Example: Microsoft Azure, Google app engine.

The main concern with the cloud is the location of data servers determines which data protection law applies to sensitive data and we can understand this when the data is stored in the enemy country.

HTTP vs HTTPS:

HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer protocol which is used for communications over the internet.

The most important difference between the two protocols is the SSL certificate. It is easier for we can say whatever the credential we enter will be encrypted under HTTPS requests but not in HTTP.

While using HTTP it is easy for a third-party person to monitor the data flow from our browser to the server. Many websites now a day are using HTTPS but still, if you got a link then it needs to be checked the connection for safety.

Irresponsible person – One man army:

Have you seen a signboard written Danger on it? What does it mean? It means the current place where you are standing is a safer place but if you go forward then you may encounter something which can be dangerous for your life, personal things, etc.

Now think before accepting permission you are in a safe place but once given the permission then you can find your data in danger. The person who takes danger works as a “one-man army” who can destroy different people’s life as well.

A person can destroy the following sectors:

a. A Firm:

Suppose a person is working in multi-international firms and the data from the firm is being stored on his office laptop. Now this person installs a third-party software or a cracked software and then allows some of the permission this can lead to a leak of sensitive information of that firm.

b. A Nation:

A country has crores of people and if the peoples are not active then they will allow the other country’s apps, and websites to store their data which can be misused by that enemy country.

c. Co-relatives:

If a person has some data of his friends or relatives which can be his phone number, photos, email ids, etc. Then nonactive can put these people’s data also in danger.

It’s time to overcome this problem

1. Leave everything: I know this is impossible now a day for any person but this can be the Don’t use social media, don’t install any app on your phone, and never register anywhere. I believe you have seen the “Money Heist” series there is a character named professor who did the same thing and never registered anything about him from the time of digitalization. But I know this can’t be done in real life.

2. 3W formula: The concept is WHO, WHAT, WHY. No matter in which sequence you follow but you must follow while giving any type of permission:

1. WHO: Whenever you install an app, or visiting a website, or click a link you must think, Is this built by a trusted person or not? You must check whether the connected building is secure or not.
2. WHAT: Ask the app, or website what permission it.
3. WHY: Ask yourself whether the app/website required these permissions for getting used or if it asking for some additional. Once you get these answers then decide if your desires are more important than your privacy.

Conclusion

Privacy is important no matter it comes to personal or industries. One can compromise his privacy but if you are using your company equipment for these then you are putting your company’s privacy at risk as well. Hacking, Security is all related to your data and data related to your privacy. We need to think about this because people are making money by selling your data.

If you want to be protected then start reading the Privacy policies of that company before giving the permissions. Lastly, in America, 36% of people never read the Privacy and policy of a company.

If your desire is more important than your privacy, you begin controlled by firms, and on its opposite, you are protected. Now think about yourself are you protected or controlled?