If you’re wondering how your data can be used against you, think about the last time you read the terms and conditions for an app you downloaded or an online account you created. Most people haven’t ever looked at what data they are agreeing to send away, to be bought and sold. Society has become accustomed to this convenience of the option to use Facebook or Google to log into an account. Why create an account from scratch with another password to remember, when you could just login within a few clicks? Most people think they probably only take basic information anyway.. And that’s the biggest threat, we aren’t aware of what information is being taken, and how it’s being used. 

For instance, to download a simple app like Clubhouse you must give permission to your SIM card, allowing them to erase data from it if they decide to. Why would they ever need to do that? Most of us wouldn’t even give our closest friend this permission. And that’s only touching the surface of other features that are not only accessed but tracked and kept in your collection of data available for any company that intends to buy that information. 

You may be thinking you don’t have anything to hide, why would you need to worry about data privacy? Now the question is, how can your GPS, contacts, messaging, including audio messages, and other personal information like what’s on your SIM card data be used against you? 

1. Discrimination

There are already pre-existing inequalities within the financial realm, and now companies have enough data on your interests, behavior, networks, and preferences to be able to narrow down a small market of people that they think are fit for their job or investment opportunities. Not only are they looking to spend less money, but they are looking to spend less money advertising to people that they are discriminating unfairly against. Yet we can’t call them out on it because it’s the data company that is to blame for causing a greater gap between those with opportunities and those without them. 

2. Tracking & Stalking

NPR noted that even without court approval law enforcement can trace the breadcrumbs of your whereabouts using license-plate scanners, toll-bridge crossings, mobile phone carriers, facial recognition technology, your IP address, and even your GPS location through your smart wearable devices. Showing us just how easy it is to find the trail of data connected to our personal data profile. You wouldn’t want this information put into the wrong hands, and the thing is we don’t know where the third parties aggregating this information are sending it. 

3. Censoring

It is fairly common knowledge that certain accounts and topics, like protests, are being heavily censored on social media platforms. But the censorship doesn’t stop at the banned content on social media. That account is attached to all of your other accounts, and your personal data profile that can be pulled up to be used in the court of law or to censor you from talking openly on any of the other interconnected profiles. 

We don’t know how we will be discriminated against, tracked, and censored further as technologies advance, and that’s why it’s important to raise awareness of the need for true data privacy and protection. If you want to take back control of your data, and protect yourself from it being used against you, check out the PRVCY Transformation course!