The Privacy Dilemma
January 16, 2009 (TechCrunch)
In a recent article title, “The Privacy Dilema”, by Erick Schonfeld and published on TechCrunch, the author pointed out that the more of our personal information that we put online, the less privacy we have. And this is a problem that will just get worse over time. He goes on to say that you cannot be fully engaged on social networks, blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed, and all the rest without opening yourself up to phishers, scammers, and identity thieves.
According to Peter Cullen, Microsoft’s chief privacy strategist, people are more freewheeling than they probably should be with their private information online, and corporations entrusted with our private data are not fully equipped to protect it.
Microsoft recently conducted some focus group research to find out consumer’s attitude toward privacy. Peter Cullen was surprised to find common attitudes toward privacy across different age groups and demographics. In general, people realize they are trading privacy for the value of being connected. Cullen summarized the findings as follows:
Sense of Resignation
Once their data is online, they know that it is gone. They say, “I need to have this value, but I’m not sure my risks are being covered.”
Calming Placebo Effect
All the subjects are employing some technology like anti-virus or deleting cookies, but they are not comfortable these are the right tools. It is
like: “I’ll take this pill. I am not sure if it is helping me, but I am just going to close my eyes and feel better.”
Concept of Shared Responsibility
They held themselves responsible for their own information. But there was a lack of understanding about how their information is being used.
Users can only do so much to protect their privacy: use strong passwords with a combination of letters and numbers; never share personal information such as credit card or Social Security numbers online, and be careful with whom you share your name, address, age, or gender; make sure all online transaction are encrypted; look for sites with privacy certificates such as TRUSTe before giving up any personal data. However, Peter Cullen cautioned against attempts to put too much responsibility on consumers to protect their own data. The companies that store and manipulate the data need to act more like stewards and less like open vaults.
YOUnite's patented technology offers a solution to the growing and costly problem of identity fraud and data security issues through the notion of "distributed sharing of personal identity attributes". By applying YOUnite's patented technology to this particular example, the user would be able to maintain their own personal attributes (e.g. address, phone numbers, demographic data, Social Security number, credit card details, and even personal preferences) on their own personal devices and then selectively share whatever information they wish to whomever they choose.
Other third party companies would not be required to store your data on their networks; therefore dramatically reducing the possibility of identity fraud or malicious use of your personal information as a result of data security breaches.
For more information, please visit our website and while you're there, read through our Resources Section for specific Use Cases and White Papers. Specifically, please read our Use Cases report titled, "YOUnite Enterprise Use Cases for the Credit Card Industry".