For the past couple of months you have probably seen the media coverage surrounding Facebook and the data breach allowing for the misuse of our personal information. While Facebook bears the brunt of our wrath and Mark Zuckerberg was called in front of a senate committee to answer questions. The fact is that Facebook is not the only one collecting our personal information, they may not even be the worst of the lot. Let’s look at our apps, technology and your information and how it is handled.
The apps we use
Grab your smartphone and take a look at the apps that you use everyday. Everything from shopping apps, email and of course all the social media platforms that you belong to. Every single one of them tracks you and how you shop, your birthday, things you love, people you admire, things you hate, your current location and even who you vote for. These apps collate this information to target you with the right ads and the businesses you could potentially become a customer of. Here is an overview of what is collected.
Online shopping
This goes even beyond having access to your personal information and just Facebook, let’s take a look at Amazon for a moment. If you are a client of Amazon’s home security system, they can deliver packages inside your home rather than on the doorstep. That means they have the ability to unlock your front door. An alternative they recently announced was the ability to deliver packages to your car, which doesn’t sound bad in theory if you are at work all day. However they are working with OnStar and using the unlock feature to deliver packages inside your car. Not quite your home but it is still coming into your personal space when you aren’t there.
What should you do
Unless you plan on packing it in and going to live in a log cabin in the middle of the woods then to a certain degree you have to accept this aspect of technology. As a business owner having this data at your fingertips allows you to streamline your business and market more effectively. As a consumer you are going to be constantly marketed to, based on the apps you use and how you use them. Your phone gives you the world’s knowledge at your fingertips and it has changed how we communicate and interact with each other. It didn’t come without a cost.
