CloudStaq

Privacy | Final Thoughts

Written by

Raghu

in

If you have been following through the posts in this series, I hope you had few take aways and found this series helpful. As a recap, here are the posts in this series:

Baby Steps

I have been in this journey for close to an year now. And it looks like this is going to be a pretty long journey. While I have taken some steps to get back in control, I also realize that these Big Tech companies will continue to track me in various other ways.

However, I have seen visible changes in how much I am being followed. It has certainly reduced drastically. But I have become a bit more paranoid :). I have turned of location access to lot of apps on my mobile. Have uninstalled quite a lot of apps. Have turned off notifications. I come across as a strange/weird person amongst my family and friends when I tell them I don’t have/use certain products.

The Cost of Privacy

One of the other things that I realized is the cost of getting privacy in one’s life. Well, I am not talking about the how much our data is worth. I am talking about how much of an effort and cost it takes to get even a small amount of Privacy and control.

As I reflect back in my life, I hadn’t thought about Privacy over these last 15 years of my active digital life. And I realize now, one can think about Privacy only after certain basic needs and comforts of your life have been take care. Especially in countries like India where vast majority of the population are still deprived of those. You cannot have a conversation with them about paying for email!!!

And that’s where platforms like Android and companies like Google/Facebook/Whatsapp have made vast improvements in an average person’s life. So, while these Big Tech companies do benefit extensively by their “large scale tracking” to monetize user’s data, it is the same companies that have made differences in those people’s lives as well.

Educating Privacy

However, I think it is important that we need to educate as many people as possible about Privacy. They should be aware about the trade offs that they are making – what they are letting go and if they are OK with it.

A lot of people are completely unaware of how their behaviors are being manipulated by these platforms by harnessing their data. I see it right in my living room where my Parents are manipulated by certain ideologies and they always see only one side of the story.

What I find even more difficult to cope up with is the fact that a lot of my friends and colleagues in the tech industry are completely blind to these. These are folks who can afford a pretty good Urban “Upper Middle Class Lifestyle” and work as Architects/Programmers/Leaders in large tech companies (including large Unicorns).

Few More Resources

  • PrivacyTools.io – a great collection of tools, services, products that are privacy focussed
  • Power of Habit – an awesome read on how our brains can be tweaked to form Habits. You will be able to relate how large companies can apply these techniques to nurture habits in their apps
  • Hooked – A similar book on how to build habit forming products. Again you will be able to relate how corporations build techniques to keep user’s addicted to their products
  • The Brain by David Eagleman – a great book to understand of our brain. How’s this relevant to privacy? You will understand how our brain works and how it can be easily manipulated

Couple of Requests

  • If you found this series interesting, please do share with your friends and colleagues who could benefit from these perspectives and can take some action to get back some privacy of their lives
  • If you have found other tools and techniques around Privacy, I would be very keen to learn those. Please do share those in the comments – lets keep the conversation going

If you have really come this far and read through all the posts in this series – a huge Thank You. Hopefully you found it worthwhile!!

Surveillance by the State

While I largely focussed this series on Surveillance by private corporations, what about large scale Surveillance by governments across the world?

The focus of this series was never about Surveillance by governments. That in itself is a huge and controversial topic. However, as I conclude this series amidst Covid-19, I feel in a post pandemic world, it might be necessary for a citizen to be tracked by the government if she wants to participate in the economy.

For example, only if your status is “Green” in the mobile app provided by the government, you will be allowed to, say, have dinner in a restaurant. I will leave that thought with you 🙂

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