Is it Too Late for Data Privacy?
The numbers are staggering. Last year’s Equifax breach, along with more recent additions, have resulted in nearly 150 million Americans—more than half of all those 18 and older—having essential identity data exposed, such as Social Security numbers, addresses, and more. And that’s just in the past year. In 2016, 2.2 billion data records of various types were poached via Internet of Things (IoT) devices—such as smart home products. Just yesterday, a judge ruled that a class action case against Yahoo (now part of Verizon) regarding the data breach of all 3 billion (yes, with a “B”) of its Yahoo mail accounts could proceed. Is it any wonder that according to a survey by the National Cybersecurity Alliance, 68% of Americans don’t trust brands to handle their personal information appropriately?
The situation has become so bad, in fact, that there are some who are now questioning whether the concept of personal privacy has essentially disappeared into the digital ethers. Talk to many young people (Gen Z, Millenials, etc.) and they seem to have already accepted that virtually everything about their lives is going to be public. Of course, many of them don’t exactly help their situation, as they readily share staggering amounts of intimate details about their lives on social media and other types of applications, but that’s a topic for another day.
Even people who try to be cautious about their online presence are starting to realize that there’s a staggering amount of information available about virtually every one of us, if you bother to look. Home address histories, phone numbers, employment histories, group affiliations, personal photos, pet’s names, web browsing history, bank account numbers, and yes, Social Security numbers are all within relatively easy (and often free) reach for an enormous percentage of the US population.
Remember all those privacy tips about shredding your mail or other paper documents to avoid getting your identity stolen? They all seem kind of quaint (and, unfortunately, essentially useless) now, because our digital footprints extend so much farther and deeper than any paper trail could possibly go that I doubt anyone would even bother trying to leverage paper records anymore.
While it may not be popular to say so, part of the problem has to do with the enormous amounts of time that people spend on social media (and social media platforms themselves). In fact, according to a survey of cyberstalkers reported by the Identity Theft Resource Center, 82% of them use social media to gather the critical personal information they need to perform their identity thefts against potential victims.
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