FaceApp:A threat to privacy...Really...???

FaceApp a name which you might have heard a few days back or today as well...

It's the app which increases your age and shows how you would look up when view would have grown up...

Many memes appeared on the internet on this topic and as usual the discussion stopped.

So why do you really need to bother about it?

Recently some news media flash news with titles like “Faceapp is a privacy threat and it has acquired data of 120 million Indians”.

If you say this is a threat to our privacy, then it might not be wrong to say that Facebook, Google and Snapchat are the king of this privacy theft industry.

As a topic has come to mind let's explore it...

You install many apps or you might have been using hundreds of apps on your smartphone.

Have you ever wondered what the privacy terms and condition included?

Or else without reading those long privacy statements you just accepted them and started enjoying the app.

In fact, it might take days to understand the language of this privacy statement and terms and conditions.

You might not feel anything about this now. Believe me or not face app is one of the apps and is just exaggerated or highlighted in the media.

Let's see what big consequences this is leading to.

There are many companies which you haven't heard of but they trade in billions and trillions.

The Global Big Data market is estimated at $23.56 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $118.52 billion by 2022 growing at a CAGR of 26.0% from 2015 to 2022. 

You know what day trade on "Data".

Yes, your personal and private data.

In this modern world they say, "Data is the new oil."

Last year turnover of big tech giants crossed the total turnover of the commerce sector globally. This data economy is even bigger than the total economy of smaller countries.

Some incidents that have happened in the recent past include Brexit vote in Britain, many say it was manipulated.

Another example is Cambridge Atlantica. This is the data firm in the US. As per some whistleblowers, they have 5000 data points on each and every one of the 87 million American voters. This is just one of the case that has come under the light because of some whistleblowers.

The picture is not much different in India as well. The consequences of same can be observed in Lok sabha elections 2019. One name that might be highlighted for this is BJP IT cell. A book by Swati Chaturvedi "I am a troll: inside the secret world of BJP's digital army" gives good insights about this topic.

What the future consequences might be?

The world will be the global simulation control by a few billionaires hiring top minds and manipulating the minds of people all around the world. You will be the puppet busy living your own life enjoying Facebook. (There might be something else by the time...)

Ok let's see what preventive steps are being taken around the globe against the breach of data privacy.

 

Last year European union passed GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), after which all take companies updated their privacy policies. You might have been notified about this. Some big tech giants were fined for billions.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg have testified regarding these facts in the US parliament.

Is it really difficult to understand what your data privacy is?

Let's seat through simple examples, one is of your location history and other is your face data.

Google is recording your location history. So it's not all the time where you have been one year ago or where are you today. (Even if you have turned off your GPS. The mobile tower is enough to locate you. GPS gives more accurate results.)

This setting is automatically enabled. Now to disable this you have to go to 4-5 steps.

Another example is of your face data. On Facebook, you have automatically enabled your face recognition on every image that is uploaded on Facebook. So this means that your face data is present on Facebook right now. That's a violation of your privacy. Again to disable this you have to go to settings and disable it manually.

Now you can imagine Facebook has face data of billions of ns of people and you are debating about-face have which just came in the market.

They (The big tech giants) know the feed that’s going to manipulate your thoughts, change your behaviour and beliefs.

Now, what you can do?

In India, data protection bill 2018 was passed in the parliament.

That's the bill which is going to protect your privacy. As per experts, it has many flaws which need to fill up to make it as effective as GDPR.

There are many pages that you can follow, for more information check out another blog post of me.

Save Our Privacy...!!!

For more information, you can refer to this article:

FaceApp: Is The Russian Face-Aging App A Danger To Your Privacy?

What do you feel about this article?

Comment what you feel and share if you like it.

Thank you for reading... 

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Article by:
Sanket Tambare,
Email: sanket.tambare@pm.me