Data Collection

Sir Tim Berners-Lee argues that nothing short of a ‘revolution’ will stem abuse of the Internet and a new Internet Charter, a new Magna Carta, is essential to force tech giants to take concrete action to reinvent how the Internet is monetized and regulated.

A new report offers a never-before-seen look at Google data collection practices, raising new questions about the extent to which the top tech companies in the world collect and collate user data without their permission or knowledge.

If you’re going to download freemium mobile apps, just make sure you know the true cost of paying for a product - possibly having your information compromised or your privacy violated.

With high-profile scandals and the seemingly daily buzz of breaches, scams and exploits, it’s more and more obvious that the data points that make up your online profiles are a hot commodity. Time for the citizenry to take back their personal data and bring back responsibility into the ecosystem.

Whether you are a user or not, you have a relationship with Facebook. With the latest revelations of the Cambridge Analytica "breach", it is becoming more and more obvious that whether you like it or not, your data will be harvested – and “sold”. Privacy choice and control is no longer fully in your hands.

No matter what future laws and regulations are imposed on Facebook, there will never be a law against storing customer data for in-company purposes. Facebook got in hot water for allowing tactics that manipulated elections. The 2056 presidential campaign could be entirely run online where Facebook likes replace votes.

Corporations and governments have access to more of your personal information than ever. Just existing in the digital world leaves a footprint that can be used to track and market to you with, and more commonly, without your permission. But all is not lost in the fight for personal privacy.

The average social media user would be forgiven for thinking that Facebook’s data scandal had come seemingly out of nowhere. There were security warnings from industry experts dating as far back as 2013. Using one of the APIs, a loophole reported in 2015 allows hackers to gather millions of personal data from Facebook.

Virtual version of ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’ may not reflect that childlike innocence and joy. In fact, a lawsuit claims that Disney is ruthlessly gathering information through mobile apps for kids to target advertising and ‘other commercial purposes’.