How Safe Are We?

How Safe Are We?

( by Rounakshi Dey )

In this age of Virtual Reality most of our times pass away by just being glued to our phones. We are busy either on Whatsapp or Instagram or Snapchat to name a few. Every time we hear of a new app we install it.

But the question is how many of us actually read the permissions before installation of an app.

The answer is NO ONE.

After installation of an app we are asked for our permission that the App needs to access our contacts, texts, videos etc. We never take this seriously and we simply click on OK. This is the first step of endangering our data.

Data is the new oil. Data is everything. And in this age of Social Medium where everything is online our Data our Privacy are the most vulnerable resources.

Almost all Apps sell our data to each other for their business profits. We are not even asked our permission.

Let’s hear of a day to day example.

We go through NYKAA and choose some beauty products and add it to our Wishlist. We logout and now open Facebook.

We see that Facebook shows us similar advertisements of dresses that we have just seen in NYKAA. How is this even possible?

We never mentioned in Facebook about our Wishlist. Did We?

Directly NO. But NYKAA sold our data to Facebook and Facebook used that to promote NYKAA.

Now how did NYKAA sell it without our permission?

Actually NYKAA has our permission. Remember while installation of the app NYKAA asked whether it access our videos and texts and contacts. Without a second thought we chose ALLOW, thus we actually permitted NYKAA to use our very details.

This is not a single case of NYKAA and Facebook. Every social medium uses our data in order to increase their customer base their profit margins.

And in all these it’s our privacy that is being hampered.

However till this it was all acceptable but difficulty crops up as CYBER-CRIME increases. We make online transactions through various portals. These social mediums do not may huge heed to data securing policies. As a result Hackers are easily able to exploit their security and get hold of our accounts.

CYBER-CRIME rates are increasing on a daily basis and our data not being secure is one of the reason.

How often do we get Fraud Bank calls?

Almost every day a week.

How are these hackers able to get our numbers? Simple they exploit the database of any social medium that stores the phone numbers of customers.

Thus we find that all these have cumulative effects. We provide permission for accessing our data and our privacy is breached.

We are not SAFE in this virtual reality. Now we come across some words associated with data breach.

Confidentiality:-

What does the word mean? 

Keeping our data private and away from everyone is what it means.

Confidentiality is the most important attribute for the safety of your data on social networks.

How we can control the confidentiality of our data depends on the network. So before we provide access to our data unknowingly we need to check the privacy policies of each social medium as they are different and then allow them to access our information.

The more control we have and know how to use, the safer we will feel about our data.

Integrity:-

This more about the policy of the Social Medium we are using.

Example of Integrity is as follow,

When we post a video or photo and the network attempts to help us by automatically applying a filter, adjusting the levels, or possibly making edits on our behalf. Our data get changed without our permission and that is where Integrity comes to play.

Availability:-

How easily available is our data? Can anyone access it?

Availability issues crop up when our data that we shared in one social medium is found out in another, example NYKAA and Facebook show the same results, this is where we understand that our data is easily available in any social medium and we need to be alert.

Now the question is what should we do?

While the availability and integrity of our data is important, in the context of our social media usage confidentiality should be top of mind.

Most social networks provide a set of privacy controls that allows us to control who on the network can see your data.

While downloading the app and allowing privacy settings just keep in mind what privacy access we are allowing and keep on reviewing from time to time.

Disclaimer:-

The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Light de Literacy and LDL does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.