Question

"In the digital age, our personal and collective privacy is threatened like it never has been before." In what specific ways is this true? Why should everybody insist on privacy rights, even if "they have nothing to hide"? What is at stake, if we end up losing our right to privacy? What can engineers do to help protect privacy?

Answer 1

In the digital age, privacy and personal information have been an issue. It is true to a large extent as many social media platforms hold a lot of personal information that can be utilized for various negative means. There are instances where some websites have sold an individual's personal data to advertisement companies.

Everyone should insist on privacy rights because there is a lot of personal information that cannot come into the eyes of the public. For instance, bank details, personal pictures, contact details, house details, etc. These are very important information that maintains the security of individuals.

If we lose the right to privacy then it can have a dangerous and detrimental effect. Dominant groups or individuals can take undue advantage and bully the less powerful group or individuals. People would be like open books and everything about them would be known. The personal information of someone can be used by anyone and can be manipulated. The identifies of people come under a negative stake. Many individuals might go into mental trauma and stress as their very personal information would be out there in society. In society there should be a balance of everything- somethings need to be protected and something needs to be opened up.

Engineers make alot of firewalls and protection on the internet. They make many details password encrypted that can only be known to the user. The continuous use of  de-identification of data and improving technologies to facilitate anonymisation .