Penetralia

Innocent Until Proven Guilty.

Article 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 re-iterates the sentiment first written down in the Magna Carta in 1215. Its a legal maxim that helps make this country, and many others, great and free. The purpose was originally to prevent all powerful Kings from imprisoning their barons because they fell out of favour. The principle states that no one person (or organisation) should have power over other people.

This is a great principle and one that can extend to other areas of life and civilised society. No one person or organisation should hold power over others due to their position. This maxim holds true for the use of our data too. There are occasions when we have to give our data / information to receive a service. For example, if you buy a physical product online, you need to give out your address if you want the product delivered. But that information is given for the sole purpose of delivering that product and should not be used for any other purpose (unless it is clearly indicated and the user freely agrees). Unfortunately, there are many situations whereby a user does not freely give consent for the use of their data and, frequently, they are not even aware that the data has been captured.

At a data security conference organised with the help of the local police, a High Ranking officer was trying to convince us that only people with something to hide would wish to prevent the police from surveilling their every movement on the internet. To enforce his point he proudly declared that he didn’t mind because he “had nothing to hide”. We smiled at each other but resisted the temptation to ask him for his credit card number and the 3 digit security code! Everybody has something to hide and a very valid reason for doing so. We should, therefore, all be in a position of being able to with-hold any data we feel should be private from people we do not wish to see it. But is that always the case?

The internet has the ability to generate billions of pounds of commerce and companies are all to eager to maximise that possibility. In paying for adverts they wish to maximise the possibility of that advert generating a sale. This is understandable and in the “good old days” this resulted in people selling flowers advertising in gardening magazines; people selling tools advertising in DIY magazines and people selling toys advertising in comics. Television adverts were placed in the programs most likely to attract customers, sweet adverts in cartoons; domestic cleaning products in chat shows and beer adverts at half time in the football. Its still possible to implement this methodology on The Internet. Adverts can be based on the content of the website. This is how duckduckgo work their advertising system where the adverts are based on the search term used, not on user profiles. Contrast this to tracking technologies like Google Tag Manager and Facebook pixel, both of which track users across almost all their browsing history, building up profiles and serving relevant adverts. Both systems gather and store a tremendous amount of data about our browsing habits.

How can we take control of our data?

In our opinion, most of this data is stolen. No-one asked us if they could have it and we haven’t normally given permission. This is in breach of the maxim that our data is private until we give it away. Google even do a privacy addon for Chrome which (they claim) increases user privacy by signalling to Google not to collect certain information. This is a sign that Google believe they are entitled to your data unless you tell them they are not. Taking control of our data can seem difficult because we are up against the billion pound advertising industry. But if we all stand together and start to develop sensible privacy habits, we can make a difference.

Being private is more difficult than it should be, but it is worth the effort. Take the time to protect yourself and be in control of what data you share and with whom.