This weeks video scares me but I liked it for various reasons. This topic makes

This weeks video scares me but I liked it for various reasons. This topic makes me realize that I’m not the only person who knows exactly what goes on inside my locked phone and gave me insight in how much information my phone company and for how long it store it. And if in the wrong hands, what they can do with this information. Just because you have a pass code on your phone, doesn’t mean no one is able to track exactly what you are doing. He brought up the people who protested on the streets of Berlin and what would have happened if they all had phones in there pocket. In some countries, the government being able to see your every move can be dangerous if you fight for beliefs that go against the government. I think in America in some situations, such as solving a murder, cyber bullying, robbery, etc. this can be a good thing. In the wrong hands, everyones information can be used against you. I truly am only worried about my passwords, bank information, or personal information being shared to hackers. There is nothing the government or phone companies can use against me or hurt me with unless they share my information with people who will use it to make me cyber victim. I don’t break the law or ever incriminate myself in any unlawful doings.
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I liked this week’s video because it explained how the governments of the world can use the data from our phones and devices to surveil us. I decided to search online to see if cell phone carriers in the U.S. retain location data, and for how long. The answers I got were: AT&T: five years; Sprint: 18 months; T-Mobile: two years; Verizon: one year. That’s pretty alarming, in my opinion. The fact that cell phone companies keep this data at all is weird to me. What could they possible need it for? Who are they sharing it with?
I agree with the presenter’s point of view because self-determination could be threatened with the information that phone companies as well as companies like Google and Apple have on us. Imagine being tracked by the government for spreading beliefs that ran counter to their regime? Or a government using data to track marginalized communities? Those scenarios are within the limits of the digital reality we live in. And it’s only going to get worse, in my opinion, as we get more and more digital.
Something related to this video that came to mind while I was watching is a documentary called Citizenfour. This documentary is about Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal. It illuminates the real ways the United States government uses data from the internet and phone service to spy on the entire world. Most of us aren’t important enough to be spied on, but the fact of the matter is that we all deserve privacy, and these practices are authoritarian and a violation of human rights.