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Tag: GDPR

Digital Privacy And Its Relationship With Ethics – A Complicated Affair

One thing about digital ethics and privacy is that many businesses and websites may not be sure of what should be labelled as ethical in terms of privacy. However, in the European Union, the GDPR helps to ensure the guidelines of protecting the data and personal information of users. As the world of technology expands, there may be even more ethical rules and regulations about digital privacy that one should be careful about.  

What is Digital Ethics?

Digital ethics is a field of study that is concerned with the shape of technology in current times and how it will affect the social, moral and, the political existence of human beings. Many various terms can be found on digital security, ethics and, privacy on Quizlet.

Some popular topics in the context of digital ethics and privacy 2019 are the following;

  • Digital monopolies and how to overcome them
  • Digital Democracy
  • Can code and speech be considered similar?
  • Cloud Computing
  • Autonomous Machinery.

Many a time, ethics and digital privacy have not exactly gone hand in hand. This may be because some companies only gain profit by selling their user’s data to third party companies and businesses for marketing reasons.

This may be where digital privacy acts and regulations come in. These are created in order to ensure user privacy, thus, compiling with ethical factors. Private browsing software such as UR-Browser keeps an updated privacy policy which informs users how and when their data and personal information will be used.

Digital Privacy Acts Over the Years

Although there are different digital privacy acts for different countries, most of them tend to have the same concept and similar rules and regulations.

The Canadian digital privacy act 2015 includes rules of personal data collection. Some of which are, the fact that the user must consent to the whole process prior to the gathering of personal data, the collector must state the purpose of the personal information and when it will be used, protection from financial abuse and, protection from the fraud of any kind. The digital privacy act Section 10 was also amended in 2015.

Privacy acts as such are continuously updated for more efficient information each year. The digital privacy act 2017 was updated for various countries including Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, France, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, and, Italy.

Some of these updates consisted of, prevention of invasions of privacy for both online and offline matters, privacy principles for both government and private sector companies that collect the user’s personal information.

Canada

For the privacy act of Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) was updated in 2017 to include specifically what kind of consent is valid for the collection, distribution and, destroying of personal data and information.

The European Union

As for the European Union, one update to its privacy act was the right for the controller to delete all personal data and information if the individual demands so. Moreover, when the purpose of the data has been completed the party who collected this information must remove it permanently.

UR-Browser compiles with all the privacy laws of the European Union, thus proving that it is a perfectly safe browser to use.

Japan

In Japan, privacy laws are from the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) which was also updated in 2017. Some of the changes included updating of the definition of “personal information”, the introduction of criminal penalties for the misuse of information databases and, the right to privacy has been recognized in the official courts of Japan.

Digital Data Privacy in 2018

2018 is said to be the year that digital privacy and security got extremely real. Its importance increased widely in all types of industries. Digital privacy in 2018 began to receive many new updates and software. Different types of private browsing software and applications were introduced in 2018 as well as improved virtual private networks to hide the location and search history of a user.   

Digital Privacy 2019

The time of writing, also 2019, is the most advanced year for digital privacy browsers. Many new and improved digital private browsers and VPNs have been introduced in the market with a very extensive range of features in each one.

For instance, the UR-Browser is not only a completely safe and secure browsing software but also comes with a built-in virus scanner and a virtual private network alongside many other amazing features.

Although technology has increased to extreme heights in 2019, there is still a sense of doubt among many users of the World Wide Web. So much so that around half of the users on the internet believe that complete and utter digital privacy is impossible and cannot be attained even with the use of the best private browsing applications or virtual private networks.

Digital Privacy in The Near Future

It is said across the internet that digital privacy in 2025 will be completely different than what users have seen up until now.

Many users believe that until 2025, a whole privacy rights infrastructure will be created. On the other hand, others believed that by 2025, the concept of privacy in online life will become a taboo subject and will not be understood nor appreciated by further generations.

Digital Privacy Rights – Christian Perspective

Digital privacy rights and ethics are also considered in the Christian religion. Some Christians may believe that the internet is a place of evil while thinking about the questionable material that is available on the World Wide Web. From a Christian perspective, some may accept technology and the internet whilst keeping in mind the positive uses of the internet.

In some cases, some people may believe that privacy was not a big issue in previous times just as it should not be now and that the government and other authorities have the right to access the private information of all internet users for legal purposes. 

However, as time goes on, more and more religious perspectives on digital privacy updates are changing in order to meet the changing world and technology.

May you have a happy, successful and more private year!

Browser, VPN, privacy, security, internet browsing, internet security, digital identity

We should all be aware by now that 2018 was a watershed year for digital privacy and data protection, marked by one Facebook or Google scandal after another.

Leading with Facebook Cambridge Analytica fiasco, Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony, a massive hack, and revelations of corporate smear campaigns were only the tip of the iceberg. (Refer also to: A bug may have exposed the unposted Facebook photos of millions ; Facebook is using your two-factor-authentication phone number to target ads ; Facebook has been collecting call history and SMS data from Android usersUK Parliament publishes Facebook secret documents showing ‘whitelisting’ firms in return for access to data)

The Facebook privacy issues revealed last year should not overshadow other important revelations like: Strava’s heat map exposing military locations; The giant Marriott hack or Google’s already obsolete Google+ bug that may have exposed private data from millions to its third-party apps;

It’s important to acknowledge the above and understand that some tech companies, and unfortunately some of the most trusted ones, not only harvest gazillions of users’ data but also employ flawed systems to use, share and profit from it. The zenith of privacy invasion played out in a report that alleged both Facebook and Google partnered with banks and bought financial data in secret, trying to get access to yet another sensitive category of private user information.

The aforementioned tech companies, and many other less well known, put their profits before your privacy, and actually built business models that demanded it. In addition, there is nothing FREE and we the users are often the product being monetized.  By itself there is nothing wrong with a consumer getting a free service and enabling profit for the service provider through some element of behavior and/or identity, as long as the profiting entity makes disclosures around business practice, doesn’t abuse the user’s trust by violating their own terms, and has no hidden tradeoffs that a user only finds out about after the fact.

So, what is next for 2019? It could continue with other giants like Microsoft, Amazon or Apple, especially with the latest digital assistant trend, but at this point it would only be speculation.

In any case, we should keep protecting our devices and be aware of which free or paid services we use. Put simply, we must be aware of and take action around our own digital identity.

To that end, great things happened as well, in the context of privacy, during 2018. Moreover, we salute and support initiatives like Europe’s GDPR law, trying to get back more privacy for consumers, but currently far from perfect in practice. It is still worth supporting and following how it will succeed in combating the most sophisticated tracking methods, like browser fingerprinting. Besides the European Union, many publications and organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, started drawing attention to the ways Google, who owns the most used browser and largest tracking network in the world, uses its power to protect its own interests rather than protecting its users.

 

The good and the bad around privacy, in 2018, further validated the need for privacy awareness and tools, therefore fueling our conviction around UR Browser, including the addition of more simple-to-use privacy features.

GDPR: How Businesses Will Be Affected

CCTV cameras looking at couple

Do you know who’s watching you?

What is the GDPR?

On April 27, 2016, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was adopted in the European Union after four years of negotiations. This law will strengthen data protection for individuals residing in the European Union (EU).

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