Algorithms and Our Privacy Online

It is important to evaluate our privacy when we use the Internet. Digital privacy is very important to consider, especially when getting information is easy, storing data is cheap, and selling data is profitable (Internet Society, 2015). We should take control of how much of ourselves we want to share online.

Algorithms make functioning easier and efficient. However, they can pose problems since self-programming algorithms are emerging and the biases of programmers can be reflected in the algorithm (Rainie & Anderson, 2017). Furthermore, algorithms can lead to unintended situations, like what happened to the Twitter bot created by Microsoft. However, I think algorithms can have an overall positive effect if they are programmed by people of diverse backgrounds and there isn’t reliance on self-programming algorithms.

One thing that surprised me about this week’s readings is Medium’s bug bounty disclosure program. I’ve heard of such programs for other applications, but this got me thinking about what is actually in the terms and conditions and privacy policies we don’t read.

One example of a privacy issue was with the application Pokémon Go. The day this app got released, it already became the most downloaded app in the mobile app stores. However, one concerning problem this app once had is that it requested “full access permission for the user’s Google account” (Pflaum, 2016). This security flaw meant that this application can access and delete your files on Google Drive! This security problem was addressed with an app update but many security experts weren’t convinced of the safety of this app. Furthermore, Niantic’s (the app developer) privacy policy was 20 pages long!

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