Is Your Personal Information Really Safe?
What are the five most used digital services on your device? What phone do you use? Ponder deeply on the answers you gave yourself. You'd get to see that most of the digital services and platforms we use are owned by big tech companies.
What do we mean by big tech companies? These are influential tech companies that are very prosperous and have a large number of users. They're usually referred to as the Big Five which are: Alphabet Inc (Google LLC), Apple Inc, Meta Inc, Microsoft and Amazon.
Away from these five companies, big tech companies include lots of other influential technology companies that have gained global relevance and reputation over time.
We can't deny the fact that these companies have so influenced our digital lives that a huge percentage of our digital activities are done using their services. By digital services, we mean those thingsstuff we do using gadgets, both offline and online.
As a result of this over dependance on Big Tech Companies, our data is with them. In this article, we'd be exploring why our data is with them and what we stand to possibly gain or lose by having our data with them and other digital services.
Data For Free Services.
There's a maxim that says, 'If a platform is free, you're the product'.
These big tech companies are into business, and the expected outcome of the business is making money, but if we observe carefully, we'd see that the majority of them are into offering free services, except for a few of their services.
For instance, using Google search is free and there's no sign of it being made into a premium membership service, same with Facebook itself. As a matter of fact, most of Google's services are free with flexible premium membership.
These giants have been in the tech space so long and they obviously don't lose all the time, so how do they make money off their free services? The answer should be obvious to you by now – The users are the products.
Data Collection: What type of Data are collected
No, technically they can't sell us, so what then do they sell? For every person who uses their services, they create an imaginary personality for that person, that personality can be known as ‘User Avatar’ it encompasses a whole lot of data about each user, from their DOB, name, password, addresses, pictures, down to user behaviour, everything you do on their platform is observed including all your search history. This is not limited to software alone, hardwares like phones are also tracked, your app behaviour and preferences, every download you make, the type of phone you use and the files that are stored on them. etc.
It is all of these that these platforms use in making money, how they do it will be discussed later in this article.
From this, you can see that every single action you take, every data you give out, all of them are stored and mapped into a digital version of you; your avatar. Your avatar is made for the sake of your data being ordered so as to ensure effective usage.
Why Collect Our Data?
Aside from giving you a free platform and service and still make money off it, why do they collect our data?
They do it for your sake. To ensure that the service is enjoyable as it is, your data needs to be collected. Remember that time you searched for a term on Google only for you to come to Facebook and a group about that term is suggested to you? The reason we keep using their platform is because they use our stored data to optimise their services for us. The automations, the ability to track lost phones, go back in time, find things that interest us and all those conveniences we enjoy is because there's a database with trillions of bits of data working for us. Without this collected data, we can't enjoy all we enjoy in this digital era.
Softwares are trained with this data to anticipate what we might do next and help us out with it through the use of suggestions.
Phase Of Data Utilisation.
Ads: The birth of personalised advertising.
Before advertisements moved to the digital space, during the era of traditional advertising, people saw ads as boring and uninviting. It still happens today in TVs, billboards and Radio stations, but with the utilisation of user data, ads are now personalised. You will agree that you get ads that tally with your interests. This is because algorithms have been trained to suggest to you stuff you may find interesting judging from your stored data.
This is where Big Tech Companies come in, they're the largest collectors of data, they are the biggest collectors of data which they either sell to smaller tech companies or they leverage on to show monetised and personalised ads to you on their platform.
Today, Meta Inc and Google LLC are among the best places to run ads on. Their large user base allows them to have the information of millions of people.
As funny as this may be, these Big Tech Companies also collaborate among themselves to share data, for instance your data on Amazon can be shared with Meta and vice versa.
Improvements.
These data are also used to track current user analytics in comparison to past ones. If users are now getting uninterested in a particular platform, the analytics will make them aware of it and from this data, they can accurately predict the reason and make readjustments by releasing new features.
Social Media algorithms are a good example of this. Any social media post that generates little interest which is marked by likes, comments, shares, etc will not be displayed on the feed of many people, and those posts that keep people pausing and engaging will keep being displayed to others.
User Privacy: How Safe is our Data?
Is it really ethical for these big tech companies to keep and use our data? Technically, yes. By using their services, you're consenting to allow them to use all the data about you that they need to function. It is in their data, privacy and cookie policy and also in their terms and conditions.
As long as you've accepted those agreements, you've given them the right to use it.
Now, to the question of the safety of our data, how are these data stored? The most sensitive data like passwords, exif data(data from the pictures we upload) is encrypted during transmission and storage while the rest, though not encrypted, is stored in a secure database.
Your data is not accessible to their staff and only very few people are allowed access to the database, and of course, they sign legally binding contracts. Be rest assured that your data is safe as long as it's a legitimate platform.
Recently, there have been growing concerns from users of the Big Five on what they do with their data, as it seems that these platforms aren't exactly transparent with what they do with our data. They won't tell you straight up what happens to your data, but the signs are too obvious.
Among the privacy concerns is that of sharing user data with government and Military organisations, but these big tech companies just like every other accusations, have repeatedly denied it.
The biggest collector among them, Google has faced the highest amount of accusations regarding user data. There's literally a Google service for anything you want. One of the accusations against them which gained widespread reputation is that of secretly listening to android users through Google Assistant well, who knows?
In conclusion, big tech companies have really done a lot for us, even with the collection of our data, we owe a lot to them, especially to the ease of doing business, and this is fuelled by our data. From the collection to the usage, the job is okay and deserves an excellent check. They still have a lot to adjust, like permitting users to be very specific about the type of data they want to share and when to delete these data from their databases, they've actually been making progress in the area of allowing users being specific about their shared data, but just like the Giants they are, more is still expected from them.
On the part of every user, try as much as you can to read and understand the terms and conditions of any service before using, especially if you're very conscious of your data.
What do we mean by big tech companies? These are influential tech companies that are very prosperous and have a large number of users. They're usually referred to as the Big Five which are: Alphabet Inc (Google LLC), Apple Inc, Meta Inc, Microsoft and Amazon.
Away from these five companies, big tech companies include lots of other influential technology companies that have gained global relevance and reputation over time.
We can't deny the fact that these companies have so influenced our digital lives that a huge percentage of our digital activities are done using their services. By digital services, we mean those thingsstuff we do using gadgets, both offline and online.
As a result of this over dependance on Big Tech Companies, our data is with them. In this article, we'd be exploring why our data is with them and what we stand to possibly gain or lose by having our data with them and other digital services.
Data For Free Services.
There's a maxim that says, 'If a platform is free, you're the product'.
These big tech companies are into business, and the expected outcome of the business is making money, but if we observe carefully, we'd see that the majority of them are into offering free services, except for a few of their services.
For instance, using Google search is free and there's no sign of it being made into a premium membership service, same with Facebook itself. As a matter of fact, most of Google's services are free with flexible premium membership.
These giants have been in the tech space so long and they obviously don't lose all the time, so how do they make money off their free services? The answer should be obvious to you by now – The users are the products.
Data Collection: What type of Data are collected
No, technically they can't sell us, so what then do they sell? For every person who uses their services, they create an imaginary personality for that person, that personality can be known as ‘User Avatar’ it encompasses a whole lot of data about each user, from their DOB, name, password, addresses, pictures, down to user behaviour, everything you do on their platform is observed including all your search history. This is not limited to software alone, hardwares like phones are also tracked, your app behaviour and preferences, every download you make, the type of phone you use and the files that are stored on them. etc.
It is all of these that these platforms use in making money, how they do it will be discussed later in this article.
From this, you can see that every single action you take, every data you give out, all of them are stored and mapped into a digital version of you; your avatar. Your avatar is made for the sake of your data being ordered so as to ensure effective usage.
Why Collect Our Data?
Aside from giving you a free platform and service and still make money off it, why do they collect our data?
They do it for your sake. To ensure that the service is enjoyable as it is, your data needs to be collected. Remember that time you searched for a term on Google only for you to come to Facebook and a group about that term is suggested to you? The reason we keep using their platform is because they use our stored data to optimise their services for us. The automations, the ability to track lost phones, go back in time, find things that interest us and all those conveniences we enjoy is because there's a database with trillions of bits of data working for us. Without this collected data, we can't enjoy all we enjoy in this digital era.
Softwares are trained with this data to anticipate what we might do next and help us out with it through the use of suggestions.
Phase Of Data Utilisation.
Ads: The birth of personalised advertising.
Before advertisements moved to the digital space, during the era of traditional advertising, people saw ads as boring and uninviting. It still happens today in TVs, billboards and Radio stations, but with the utilisation of user data, ads are now personalised. You will agree that you get ads that tally with your interests. This is because algorithms have been trained to suggest to you stuff you may find interesting judging from your stored data.
This is where Big Tech Companies come in, they're the largest collectors of data, they are the biggest collectors of data which they either sell to smaller tech companies or they leverage on to show monetised and personalised ads to you on their platform.
Today, Meta Inc and Google LLC are among the best places to run ads on. Their large user base allows them to have the information of millions of people.
As funny as this may be, these Big Tech Companies also collaborate among themselves to share data, for instance your data on Amazon can be shared with Meta and vice versa.
Improvements.
These data are also used to track current user analytics in comparison to past ones. If users are now getting uninterested in a particular platform, the analytics will make them aware of it and from this data, they can accurately predict the reason and make readjustments by releasing new features.
Social Media algorithms are a good example of this. Any social media post that generates little interest which is marked by likes, comments, shares, etc will not be displayed on the feed of many people, and those posts that keep people pausing and engaging will keep being displayed to others.
User Privacy: How Safe is our Data?
Is it really ethical for these big tech companies to keep and use our data? Technically, yes. By using their services, you're consenting to allow them to use all the data about you that they need to function. It is in their data, privacy and cookie policy and also in their terms and conditions.
As long as you've accepted those agreements, you've given them the right to use it.
Now, to the question of the safety of our data, how are these data stored? The most sensitive data like passwords, exif data(data from the pictures we upload) is encrypted during transmission and storage while the rest, though not encrypted, is stored in a secure database.
Your data is not accessible to their staff and only very few people are allowed access to the database, and of course, they sign legally binding contracts. Be rest assured that your data is safe as long as it's a legitimate platform.
Recently, there have been growing concerns from users of the Big Five on what they do with their data, as it seems that these platforms aren't exactly transparent with what they do with our data. They won't tell you straight up what happens to your data, but the signs are too obvious.
Among the privacy concerns is that of sharing user data with government and Military organisations, but these big tech companies just like every other accusations, have repeatedly denied it.
The biggest collector among them, Google has faced the highest amount of accusations regarding user data. There's literally a Google service for anything you want. One of the accusations against them which gained widespread reputation is that of secretly listening to android users through Google Assistant well, who knows?
In conclusion, big tech companies have really done a lot for us, even with the collection of our data, we owe a lot to them, especially to the ease of doing business, and this is fuelled by our data. From the collection to the usage, the job is okay and deserves an excellent check. They still have a lot to adjust, like permitting users to be very specific about the type of data they want to share and when to delete these data from their databases, they've actually been making progress in the area of allowing users being specific about their shared data, but just like the Giants they are, more is still expected from them.
On the part of every user, try as much as you can to read and understand the terms and conditions of any service before using, especially if you're very conscious of your data.
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