The Internet of Things
While we may frequently consider the ways in which our lives are connected to the internet, it may be easy to forget about all of that once we “log out.” But what about the ways in which we never log out? As a society we have eagerly signed ourselves up for services that monitor our every action to make our lives easier, but we have failed to consider the consequences. Handheld and wearable technology is probably one of the greatest accomplishments of this century to date, but the rate of innovation is moving at an exponential pace. In just the past 15 years we have seen the emergence of smart phones, Google Glass, smart watches, and an app for everything, so to think about what will happen in the next 85 years of this century is overwhelming.
When considering the way that our lives are intertwined with technology, and the potential risks that come with that constant monitoring, may seem unavoidable. We cannot imagine giving up our technology, so we absorb the privacy risks because they are easy to forget about until there is a problem, but the reality is that we do not have to choose between one or the other.
We frequently think about all the things that we want in our lives to make it more convenient, but we rarely think about the small steps that could be taken to make our lives more secure. The reality of the matter is that there is still time to turn this around by pressuring technology manufacturers and developers to make privacy a primary concern in the software that they are developing right now – something that would not be a massive feat for them. The power in this situation is held by consumers, we just have to make sure that those companies know that we care.
So how about the next time we are glancing at the excessive privacy contract that comes with our new device or service, we take a moment to consider what our own privacy standards are, and not settle for anything less.
Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/how-we-can-maintain-privacy-in-the-era-of-the-internet-of-things/article24700062/
