Privacy and its Effects on all of us

As the world we live in and the people who live in it become more and more reliant on technology, it is more important than ever to make sure we are all being as safe as possible with how we use it. Some of the issues we all face on a daily basis include facial recognition for pictures or videos we post online, GPS tracking on our phones and cars, Governments keeping records of our license plates, and using that info to tell where we've been, and Cell phone carriers keeping our phone calls and text messages on the record. 

These issues affect not only me, my friends, and my family, they affect every single person with a cell phone, a car, or any other vehicle with a license plate. Personally, I have both a cell phone and a car, so for every possible issue that I mentioned, I'm at risk. It's unsettling thinking about the information police departments and the government gather on a daily basis about all of us. These issues are never talked about in the news and that's a mistake, people need to know that they are at serious risk of being exposed to anyone on the internet. 

The government in some cases is the main culprit of these acts of privacy intrusion. They feel as if they need to keep an eye on everyone because at any moment anyone can commit a criminal act. Where I feel they need to step back is with the innocent, or "clean" people on the internet. The people who have spent years and years online and have never said or done anything illegal should be monitored way less than they are. What I'm suggesting is that the government puts together specific targets to monitor more closely than any normal person. 

As Christopher Soghoian stated in his TED Talk, we need to stick to ways of communicating with each other that are encrypted, like iMessage, FaceTime, and WhatsApp. If we all start using any one of these communication methods, we can start to feel a bit more secure about how we all live. We can't really do anything about the license plate tracking issue or the issue with the GPS tracking from the government. But over time we can create movements and hopefully make our representatives make the decisions that are best for us their citizens, and us above anyone or anything else.