What is Truly Private?

Privacy, a word that has barely any meaning in our society today. It is extremely alarming that no one pays attention more to see how bad our privacy is being invaded. Technology has made it particularly hard to understand what is truly private. We post everything about our lives on social media for people to see. Even if you think your account is private, is it really? I'm absolutely flabbergasted after watching these videos on privacy. I have always known that the government is able to access things online when they need too, but I was not aware how much access they truly have. 

It is imperative that as a society we take the time to learn about privacy rights and what is truly private. I want to take the time to highlight a couple of the lessons I learned from watching the videos. The first being be careful what you post. I was always told this since I got my first phone in 2014, because you never know how it will affect you later in life. Companies can look up your name and see everything you have posted since you first created your account, even if you are a private account. This is shocking, but not surprising. As a company I would want to know about who I was hiring before just handed them the job. Secondly, just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. As mentioned in the second video, license plate readers go noticeable because the public has no idea what they are looking for. The same goes for websites, just because something may say that it is safe and secure doesn't mean it always stands true to that. Far to many people in the United States are getting their identities stolen because they put their private information on a sketchy online shopping website. 

Not only should the people start taking initiative to fix the idea of privacy, but so should the government. It is about time that we start building networks to be as secure as possible. In the third video it talks about the concept of backdoors, and how they are there for the government to be able to see illegal activity. However, just because you can build a backdoor doesn't mean there should be one. Making it harder for the government to access private information is just going to have to be a sacrifice we make in order to have more secure networks. Lastly, I strongly believe that the government should dispose of all data that is collected and stored on innocent people. There is no reason for this to even be questioned or argued against. It goes back to a simple principle, trust. Trust in the government has decreased significantly because of how many secrets they are keeping from society. If the government were to start taking simple steps, like disposing of data, then maybe we would have more unity between the government and the people.