Privacy in the digital age

This story is from cnet telling us the invasion of privacy from digital technology,

The Cambridge Analytica story was a rude awakening for a lot of people,” said Omar Tene, vice president of the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

These experts aren’t the only ones seeing a positive side to more people being aware of privacy issues. Facebook is too.

“We think it’s a good thing that people are more interested in using privacy controls and managing their information online,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “In 2019, we want to keep making sure people know about the controls they have available and how to use them.”

While Cambridge Analytica was the biggest event, other privacy mistakes throughout the year continued to grow people’s concerns. Reports found, for instance, that Google’s services tracked and stored people’s location data, even if location history was disabled, while lawmakers learned that wireless carriers were selling real-time location data from your phones to tracking companies.

When reached for comment, Google pointed to a September blog post from its chief privacy officer, Keith Enright.

“People deserve to feel comfortable that all entities that use personal information will be held accountable for protecting it. And we believe that regulation can support a dynamic marketplace for businesses of all types and sizes,” Enright wrote in the post.

Wireless carriers including T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint didn’t respond to requests for comment. AT&T declined to comment. 

After the Cambridge Analytica incident, another surge of privacy awareness was brewing. You might have noticed it in your inbox in late May when a flood of privacy policy updates arrived. That’s because the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation went into effect on May 25, forcing tech companies to comply with new privacy standards for EU citizens.

While the laws apply only to the EU, tech companies with a major global footprint changed their policies across the board. This gave users more control over how companies collect their data.