11 Online Privacy

There is probably no such thing as online privacy following recent revelations of what our governments our doing with regards to monitoring our online activities. Even the services we consider having some degree of privacy are analysed by some form of automated system, whether for marketing purposes, compliance or duplication. But government monitoring aside, the biggest problem with online privacy is people assuming they have a lot more privacy than they actually do. Sometimes this is not their fault, they just didn't think of all the possible implications or scenarios. For example, they privately share some funny but compromising photos with a few close friends, which then get re-shared publicly inadvertently by one of the friends. Everything you do online can form a chain and be duplicated to start another chain, this time without the privacy settings you wanted. 

Many online services allow you to synchronise your data to another device or computer. The most common being photos taken on modern smartphone camera are duplicated onto a cloud-based storage system such as iCloud or OneDrive and then synchronised to a device or computer allowing you to easily view or print them. If other people have access to the devices that are collecting your data (in this case photos) they may get to see things you’d rather they didn’t. Your privacy is also compromised if people have your password to online service suites like Gmail or Outlook.com/Hotmail. They will also have access to your photos, documents as well as emails.

Using the same account on multiple devices can also be an issue. I recently got caught out due to having linked devices trying to organise something for my wife’s birthday. My iPad was collecting my messages from my iPhone and sounding a ping notification every time a message arrived. My wife was using the iPad and up popped a private reply to my message from her sister. If you share devices with other people, especially Apple devices, they will probably be able to see everything on that device, including emails, photos, videos and documents.

Social media privacy is often in the news, with a social media company’s terms and conditions causing uproar because of a clause about what they can do with your data. But on a more practical level, the issue is that social media is now regularly scanned by recruiters as part of the interview screening process, but you don't have to have an account on social media to be on social media!  I know people who are often told ‘I saw that picture of you on Facebook from the party last weekend, your name came up when I moved the mouse over you’ who reply, ‘but I’m not on Facebook.’  The pictures were uploaded by others with Facebook accounts and the pictures where tagged with the people’s names, making it searchable.

There are a number of services that allow images to be sent to others which self-delete once viewed or are only available for a limited time. In the belief that no audit trail will be left it is common to send risqué images with these services. The problem is that the receiver can duplicate these images by capturing the screen (on an iPhone you just press both front and top buttons together) and keep them, despite the original being no longer available. Services such as Snapchat will warn the sender that a screenshot image has been taken, but to get the other person to delete it may not be possible. Also, software used to duplicate a tablet or smartphone screen onto a second device can easily bypass the warning the sender would get if a copy was made.

The saying 'what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' applies to the online world, so remember 'what happens on the internet stays on the internet' and it's accessible by millions for years to come. So be careful what you write online, share, photograph or video, but more importantly that other people may re-share what you share and can also photograph or video you and share it online too.

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