Privacy Day — Yes it Matters More than You Might Think

Privacy Day promotes the fundamental principles of being able to control your personal information and to raise awareness of the risks in our digital society. The advancement and adoption of communication technology have elevated this issue to a worldwide problem.

A casualty of the digital revolution has been our privacy. In recent years, consumers’ insatiable desire for convenience, efficiency, and speed has led to a willingness to disclose their identities, purchases, location, personal preferences, interests, communications, and social interactions to the digital world. Corporations have been happy to collect, aggregate, and analyze the data for their advantage and profit. Unscrupulous governments have leveraged the vast amount of information to profile people based upon their interests, views, location, and political alignment. Regardless of who possesses it, access to a treasure trove of private data facilitates both direct and indirect manipulation.

Privacy data is used in marketing to encourage sales, to change political perspectives, shift opinions, manipulate prices, isolate, threaten, cajole, extort, and even to quantify a value for individuals. Access to personal data unlocks many dark possibilities, including fear which has the ability to suppress free speech and independence.