Are Our Lives Really Private?

It can be scary thinking about how public the world actually is. Watching these four TED talks made me think how it is affecting me, my family and, friends. The first two were the ones that stood out to me about how my life and others peoples' lives are not really that private. The first video by Juan Enriquez called Your Online Life, Permanent as a Tattoo talks about how everything you post is collected and permanent. He uses the express electronic tattoos. The reason is because everything people look up on Google or post on Facebook is going to stay with them forever. This goes along with the second video by Catherine Crump. In her video, she talks about how the police have data on every person. They can track where people go and even who they were with. To me, this is crazy. The police are taking pictures and collecting data every where I go even when I have not committed a crime. This issue makes me feel as if I am always being watched. 

The scariest one out of the three videos is Darieth Chisolm's video. In this video she told her story about how her ex boyfriend shared sensitive images of Darieth. This in the end hurt her reputation and harmed her mentally and physically. One of the sad parts in the video is that there is barely any laws in place for a situation like this. In the video, she also talks about how hard it is to get justice for being subjected to a crime like this. Our government should pass laws on these type of situations. The government could also have laws that hold the company accountable for what was posted on these various websites. People that have gone through something like this should not have to go through the same process she did. 

Then the final video from Christopher Soghoian talks about what we can do to help make our lives more private. In this video, he talks about what app we should use to make sure people can not hack our texts. Watching this video made me relieved after the other videos because it showed that some of the apps are still protecting us from people who see what I text to others. The thing that did bother me the most throughout the video was that he only had three examples. Out of all the ways I can communicate with my friends and family, only three made it on the list he talked about. 

After watching these videos, it makes me wonder how much of my life is collected and stored in data. It is crazy to me that the police has tracked me to every location and could tell me who I was with. Our government should look into this matter and see is this an invasion of privacy. Finally, as people who use the internet, we should make sure our apps are encrypted to make sure no on gets our information. Also, if you do decide to use an app without an encryption, then watch what you do on that app.