At the RSA Security Europe Conference, individual privacy was brought to the forefront of people’s discussions. It was argued that communication and society has changed forever and that will have a negative impact on personal privacy. In the decades before, conversations were generally done face to face or over the phone. Yet nowadays, lots of communication is carried out via email and/or websites. This creates a saved hard record of all correspondence.

Deleting an email will not really delete it. The recipient or sender will most likely still have a version of the email on their email account. Not surprisingly, giant data centres make it really easy to store online communication. It is argued that cheaper technology costs and continually increasing memory capacities mean that data storage and collection is now much more feasible than it was some years back ago.

You may be wondering why it matters so much, but personal data is the same as higher profits and having access to a lot of private personal data will result in companies making more money from advertising. Everyday, this is routinely seen whilst registering for something new, with those ‘cross here if you do not wish to hear any communication from our company’; this occurs offline as well. However, how many consumers read all of the privacy policies and terms of agreement for the programs we download or the websites which we visit? It may be astonishing to read a few of them and know just what the website can do with your data.

Facebook continues to be derided for its convoluted privacy policy and not being transparent enough with users. It is completely possible for everyone to go through just about all the info on a person’s profile if they have not enabled selected privacy configurations. Whilst the security mindful among all of us will make sure to set our privacy settings accordingly, a lot of users do not realize they’re actually exposing themselves to prospective Internet crime and identity theft. It’s not just enough to argue that it is their own problem if their level of privacy becomes compromised. Additionally, companies should never wish to deceive users for the purpose of simpler data farming.

Google was also faced with lots of political and social complaints with regard to its unauthorized collection of private data while collecting data as a part of its StreetView services. Google effectively listened in to people’s wi-fi connections and subsequently stored private data. Google’s nonchalant reaction upset lots of people and many national governments were drawn into the debate challenging the legality of what Google did.

The more private information a company has on you, the more they can charge companies to target users. If a company knows that you are female, aged between 30-40 and have three children, well then advertisers will be willing to pay more since they are able to target ads more efficiently. If an advertisement is targeted at the proper customer then the advertisers will achieve more results. Marketers may be willing to pay a premium since then they would be able to target with toy, home improvements and kitchen advertisements, compared to advertisements for weight lifting or extreme sports (although it should be noted that these are big generalizations).

Hence, it is important to always be sure that you have read the terms of agreement accurately. Whenever you sign up for anything you are signing a contract. It would be sad to imagine that one ill-judged sign up for a website could result in anything bad a few years later. Always read the terms thoroughly, it may be clichd but it might just save you from sticky situations. Additionally, you should also have good web safety practices. Having a safe password is a great step but you could also use a password manager which would enhance your safety! You can retain passwords to a site and keep them safe and secure.

If you eat a lot while surfing the internet, you may experience this. Sometimes it’s so bad that it feels like this!