Wow. Have you ever thought that other people or even the government was watching your every move through your social media accounts? News outlets are revealing that Raytheon, one of the world’s most influential defense giants, has built software intended to track people through their use of social networks. Information pulled from check-ins, Facebook and even location information from tagged photographs is imported and tracked through the software. Super creepy, isn’t it?
Ever Wonder if You’re Being Tracked Online?
According to a recent story in the Guardian, this type of mass surveillance is referred to as Big Data and here’s how it works: “by grabbing hundreds or thousands of datapoints on millions of people, we build a systematic picture of how everyday people act. By analyzing these by machine for “outliers”, or suspicious activity, we can catch the bad guys – and it’s OK, because only at that stage is another human being looking through your personal info.”
The bottom line is this: the possibility of false positives is huge, putting a lot of innocent people at risk. And while most of us have nothing to hide, we still have a right to privacy on our social networks. What do you think – does this defy our rights to privacy? Or does it make you feel safer?
