{"id":258989,"date":"2018-05-20T12:56:54","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T10:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=258989"},"modified":"2018-05-20T12:59:39","modified_gmt":"2018-05-20T10:59:39","slug":"why-even-worry-about-protecting-your-private-data-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/258989-why-even-worry-about-protecting-your-private-data-online.html","title":{"rendered":"Why even worry about protecting your private data online?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook landed in hot water recently following reports that data from the service was harvested<\/strong><\/a> by third parties.<\/p>\n

Political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica was accused of using the data while working on Donald Trump\u2019s campaign to become US President.<\/p>\n

It disputed<\/strong><\/a> the allegations, saying it used data from other sources.<\/p>\n

South Africa has also seen its own large-scale leaks of personal data, with over 75 million unique records exposed<\/strong><\/a> when Jigsaw Holdings left a database unprotected on a web server.<\/p>\n

Having your personal information leaked online as part of the \u201cMaster Deeds\u201d database in 2017 is upsetting, but SensePost CTO Dominic White said credit unions sell such data for a small fee.<\/p>\n

Compared to the Master Deeds leak, the data from credit unions will also be more complete and up-to-date, said White.<\/p>\n

This raises the question: With so much of our personal information readily available, why even worry about protecting it?<\/p>\n

Personal data for sale<\/h3>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of data out there, but let\u2019s not pretend it\u2019s all the data, or that all the data that matters,\u201d White told MyBroadband.<\/p>\n

White said there is a great philosophical argument for privacy as intimacy<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0rather than weaker formulations like \u201cthe right to be forgotten\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing my phone number and getting spammed by insurance brokers is irritating. Combining my phone number with my social profile to infer an economic level to modify loan conditions is creepily discriminatory. But a human being surveilling conversations between me and my wife or children is\u2026 horrifying,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The other reason to care about protecting your personal information online is because consumers can insist on changes, said White.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can change the status quo. Just because anyone could rob you, doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t put up walls and try make it harder in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

He argued that people should care about the whole data broking ecosystem, though, and not selectively target people like Cambridge Analytica or Jigsaw Holdings when news of their leaks is reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just playing outrage whack-a-mole,\u201d said White.<\/p>\n

He said legislation like South Africa\u2019s Protection of Personal Information Act or the European Union\u2019s GDPR helps by putting in robust consent, anti-aggregation, and disclosure in place.<\/p>\n

However, banks will still require you to consent to sharing your data with credit unions.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext, we need to make it so you can meaningfully opt out, without also opting out of the economy,\u201d said White.<\/p>\n

Now read: Twitter bug exposed passwords in plain text<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook landed in hot water following reports that data from the service was harvested by third parties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":221971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49569,50569,23159,161,35,19544],"class_list":["post-258989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-cambridge-analytica","tag-credit-union","tag-dominic-white","tag-facebook","tag-headline","tag-sensepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260779,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258989\/revisions\/260779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}