TED Talk

How do these issues affect you? You friends and family?

These issues affect everyone everyday. Majority of the population uses their phones 24/7. I know that I use the FaceTime feature on my phone almost every day so I can keep in touch with my best friend that is now states away. Now I don't drive but basically everyone I know does, and I have definitely appeared in those photos the police stations keeps on file. Both my sisters have been driving since they were under eighteen, scary to think that police stations have photos of minors on file. But really these issues could affect anyone in my life, if someone is always listening or having access to things they shouldn't. Any of the women in my life (myself included) could be at risk of having photos leaked that they want to stay private. And I think about my mother who has spent over thirty years working for Raytheon, someone could access her phone and laptop and potentially leak classified information. 

What should the government be doing about these issues?

The government needs to figure out how worth it this data really is. Yes I can understand wanting to catch a criminal. But innocent people are at risk every day because of the governments lack of control of this data. People should not have to worry if their phone calls are being tracked and personal messages are being read. The government needs to put limits on how and when data is being collected. But besides personal information, the distribution of pornographic pictures is a much more serious issue that they have done nothing to help prevent. They need to be on top of when they get a report of something like this and act immediately to get it taken down. Followed by proper legal action. Obviously the government can't police everything that goes up on the internet, but in cases where revealing photos are being spread, they NEED to do something about it. Especially when there are minors involved.

What can we do to protect ourselves from invasions of our privacy?

Things we can do to protect our privacy include, not allowing apps to collect our personal data. We can make sure this setting is turned off in individual apps. We can also make sure we are careful with what we post online, don't reveal too much about yourself so information doesn't fall in the wrong hands. Sadly we can't really control what the government does, and they will always have an eye on us with the increase of technology. Like we can't stop them from taking pictures of us as we leave our cars. But we just need to be mindful of what we do on and offline.