Friday, January 24, 2020

Government and Data Privacy: One step forward, two steps backward





President Donald Trump recently rallied against Apple’s goal of end-to-end data encryption in their iPhones, saying that Apple “holds the key to many criminal minds”. While his statements are true, they trigger the question of data privacy and ethics. Should data privacy be forfeited for the greater good of society?

Tech leaders around the world have started to make the push for better data privacy, with companies like Apple putting data protection at the forefront of their product advertisements. Governments have also started to take the issue of data privacy seriously, with the European Union implementing General Data Protection Regulation in 2018. However, our government doesn’t want these data privacy rules to apply to them as it hinders their pursuit of public safety.


Their reasoning isn’t a bad one. Dangerous criminals could be caught if law enforcement was given access to criminal data, but the technology to access anyone’s data without consent is also dangerous. Even social media platforms are being targeted by law enforcement. Over 600 law enforcement agencies in the USA and Canada have signed up to use an app called Clearwater AI that does facial recognition using Facebook and YouTube, raising major privacy concerns.

It’s not all bad though. The NSA recently informed Microsoft of a major security flaw in Windows 10, a stark contrast from their normal methodology of keeping security flaws a secret while creating backdoors, in the name of national security. This incident shows us that the government does care about data protection, putting our security above their own agenda, but we as a society still need to discuss the ethical implications of government access to our data.

With the way things are going, it seems that our data will be protected, just not from the government. We need to figure out where to draw the line between data privacy and public safety because if we don’t, we’re ignoring a massive issue that affects all of us and we will never feel truly safe.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Annish -- Interesting and very relevant article! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to figure out how this issue is grounded in insights from the readings. I would have liked to see links for things that provide more info on the most recent Apple controversy and GDPR. I would also like to challenge your last paragraph a bit. Private companies may not necessarily be "hacking" into personal devices, but anyone whose ready a Privacy Policy for a company like Facebook or Google probably wouldn't say these companies are protecting our data either.

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