Privacy, Online & Offline

Catherine Crump (Civil Liberties Lawyer) TED Talk titled, "The Small
and Surprisingly Dangerous Detail the Police Tracks About You."

I was so surprised to hear that our lives may not be as private as I thought they were. There are thousands of ways the government collects and stores our personal information from our everyday lives.

After watching a TED Talk by Catherine Crump, she explained how simply driving your car around town can reveal so much about you. Your car can show if you simply attend church or even if you are going to an AA meeting that you hoped would be private. This information is basically “up for grabs” for the government, and it is shockingly easy for them to see where you are going, when you are going there, and who you are with.

Automated License Plate
 Reader

The Automated License Plate Readers were something that really interested me. They are mounted on roads and police cars and capture images of every passing car, which can then be checked against cars on hot lists. I knew these plate readers took photos of license plates, but I had no idea this information was being stored and organized within a system.

The scary thing is that police departments are not just keeping information on the plates or people who have done something wrong. Instead, these systems can capture information on everyone who passes them  and reveal the date, time, and location of where a car was traveling.

Catherine shared a story about a guy named Mike who went to his local police station and asked for the plate reader information they had on him. One of the photos showed his two daughters getting out of the car in their family driveway. If this can happen to an innocent person, it can happen to any of us.

This made me really think about my friends and family. We drive often, use our phones, post on social media, and share our locations without really thinking about it because we are just going about our daily lives. It makes me feel like we have very little ability to control what is known about us, and it feels like a complete invasion of privacy.

The TED Talk also explained that some of this information is only being stored because the cost of storing data has gone down. This means police departments can hold onto the information in case it becomes useful one day.

Juan Enriquez's TED Talk titled "Your Online
Life, Permanent as a Tattoo."

Mike had not committed a crime and did not have a warrant, yet the government still collected and kept all of this information about him. I find that really concerning.

I feel that the government must have limits on how much information it can collect about people and how long that information can remain in a system. In a world that is constantly changing with technology, it should not be okay to store information simply because it is possible. There should be a reason for collecting someone's information, along with clear rules about who can access it and when.

In Juan Enriquez’s TED Talk, he used the idea of “electronic tattoos” to describe our online presence. Tattoos are seen by everyone and can tell a story about someone without giving them the ability to explain the meaning behind them.

As a teenager, I know I post hundreds of Snapchats, Instagram posts, and TikToks without always taking the time to think about how they could affect me in the future. Once something is online, it can stay with us for much longer than we expect.

Juan connected this idea to Greek mythology, which really stood out to me. He used the goddess Atalanta and her fascination with the golden apples that distracted her from her race. This made me think about how we can also get caught up in the moment and post something without carefully considering the consequences.

Overall, both TED Talks made me realize how difficult it is to truly keep our lives private today. Whether it is information collected while we are driving or something we choose to post online, so much of what we do can leave a digital record. It is important for us to protect ourselves online and keep our digital footprint clean and positive because what we share today can follow us into the future.

AI Disclosure: AI was not used to research or provide information for this blog post. All information came from the two TED Talks and an in-class lecture. I used AI to help correct grammar, improve sentence flow, and organize my ideas into a smoother blog post that was easier to read and understand. AI did not add any additional information or ideas to the content. I then added links to online sources that the reader could peruse for more information.