Today, technology has become a part of everyday life and, for some people; a life without certain technology is unimaginable. When we buy a gadget, it is almost as if it becomes a segment of our lifestyle; we begin to depend on it and ‘personalise’ it by adding information about ourselves. For the most part, this seems like a luxury and benefit of gadget – that they can become ours – but this attitude has introduced with it new methods of invading privacy.
Phone Hacking in the Information Age
Whilst talking on the phone, sending text messages or leaving voicemails, people may say things that are personal – and in recent years phone hacking has become a more common popular, particularly for public figures. Phone hacking is the act of accessing someone’s phone calls, text messages or voicemail messages without their permission.
Phone hacking is illegal in most countries nowadays, but in some cases that doesn’t prevent people for doing it in order to obtain secret, personal information. Since mobile phones were first introduced, there were methods of phone hacking and phone companies have had to continually attempt to defend against these methods.
Nowadays it is believed that there is certain software that can allow people to access people’s phone calls.
Cyber-crime in the Information Age
Just as Internet activity has boomed, so has cyber-crime and it now considered one of the ‘fastest-growing criminal activities on the planet’. (BBC NEWS bbc.co.uk)
The term cyber-crime covers a wide range of criminal activity done on computers and the Internet such as illegally downloading music, stalking emails, computer hacking, creating/distributing viruses, stealing information from others and identity theft.
Cyber-crime can have major effects on security, but also financially – according to BBC NEWS, cyber crime costs the UK £27 billion annually.
My Opinion on Cyber-Crime in the Information Age
I believe the Internet is a spectacular piece of technology, and has given us access to information and opportunities that could not be possible without it, but the thought of the thousands of potential crimes that comes with it does give it a somewhat sour aftertaste. It is scary to think that the beauty of the Internet reaching and connecting people worldwide is being twisted, and that faceless strangers on the other side of the world may be stealing your information or money or identity, somewhat hidden and protected through the computer screen. It is enough to put many people off using the internet or computers.
Personal information is valuable, and since the introduction of the Internet and other Technologies it is being given out by people a lot more via Technology e.g. for online purchasing, on social networks etc. – and few people really know how safely data they are handing over is being handled. Even data that isn’t being given out, but that is being automatically accumulated about you on your computer or on certain websites, is important – and for some people, protecting this data seems like a daunting but not vital task.
Personal data, such as purchasing history, can reveal a lot about a person and their lifestyle and interests. It can allow companies to build up an idea of who you are – which they can use to give an estimated guess as to what they would consider buying. Even the data stored by other companies can help them to do this - a worked example of this would be the data from a supermarket being used by a film store. If the person has bought lots of teen magazines and pop music then that person would most likely be interested in ‘chick flicks’ and ‘romances’, so the film store could send them promotional emails/leaflets to advertise new releases from those genres in the hope that they would be interested. Personal data can be interpreted and analysed so companies can learn more about you than you’d have thought possible. Personal data can also be used for theft of money or even, in extreme cases; identity.
For these reasons, certain laws have been put in place in order to combat the new threats that Information Technology has introduced to privacy and personal data.
The Data Protection Act 1988
The purpose of the Data Protection Act is to protect personal data and control how it is handled – it gives the data subject (people whose data it is) rights with regards to the information kept about them.
There are 8 principles of the Data Protection Act:
- The data must be fairly and lawfully processed
- The data must be used for limited purposes
- The data must be adequate and relevant. Only what is needed may be used
- The data must be accurate
- The data mustn’t be kept for longer than is necessary
- The data must be accessible to the individual and able to be corrected or removed where necessary
- The data must be secure
- The data mustn’t be transferred to countries without adequate protection
Under the data protection act, data subjects have the right to
- See what data is being held about them if they ask
- Change anything that is wrong
- Refuse to have some data stored at all, if it might cause damage or distress
- Refuse to allow processing for direct marking – junk mail
- Complain to the Data Protection Commission if they think the rules have been broken
- Claim compensation if they can prove they have been caused damage by a data controller breaking the rules
Computer Misuse Act 1990
There are 3 specific offences
- Accessing computer material without authorization
- Accessing computer material with a plan to do or aid the doing of a serious crime e.g. hacking to steal data
- Changing computer material without authorization e.g. writing a virus to destroy data
Under this act, the committing of any of these offences results in a fine and, in some cases, a jail sentence. The purpose of this Act was to assist with the problems that these offences cause.
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