Does Privacy Truly Exist In Our Modern World?

An overview of “We Need to Take Back Our Privacy” by Zeynep Tufecki from The New York Times.

As the world becomes more technologically dependent, data becomes more and more of a commodity to large corporations and society as a whole. Major companies can use personal data, unknowingly collected, for a multitude of purposes including targeted ads, statistics for company reports, or even for tracking specific individuals. Privacy isn’t in consideration anymore, and many technology users are unaware of this fact.

In the article “We Need to Take Back Our Privacy”, Zeynep Tufekci outlines the current state of major companies’ influence and control over user data. In one instance, a reporter at The New York Times attempted to “cut Google out of her online life”, but found that many other of her commonly used apps, such as Uber or Spotify, didn’t work because they relied on Google applications. The interconnectedness of these companies is beneficial regarding efficiency, but in this instance, the reporter could not use any of her apps without Google, a known platform that was under fire a few years ago for many reasons, including the blatant selling of user data to corporations. As someone with a computer programming degree and has worked in software companies, Tufekci gives an insider view of large tech companies and their motives. Many of her arguments in the article deal with the tracking of women’s data to pinpoint pregnancies and potential pregnancies, leading to corporations questioning the use of contraceptives as well as abortions. In lieu of Roe V. Wade’s overturn, this data is used to track women who “might seek abortions and medical providers … [where it would be] criminalized”. Tufekci explains that even by using simple apps such as period tracking apps or Google Maps, women’s travels can be monitored for governmental use, and the apps become a double-edged sword - beneficial for overall efficiency but subsequently detrimental to a woman’s safety. By mentioning the Constitution’s values of privacy, laws such as the Privacy Act of 1974, and the views of Louis Brandeis, a past Supreme Court Justice, Tufekci builds a credible argument over technology use. She provides insight on how large corporations obtain data without user knowledge and illustrates that while options such as using burner phones or deleting certain apps can help with personal privacy, the only solution is to regulate the “collection, use and manipulation of electronic data” through “legal and political” means. Speaking to an audience of a new generation of technology users, Tufekci emphasizes the ever-growing importance of keeping privacy an aspect of humanity to be valued and protected, through personal control and even federal law.

Tufekci, Zeynep. “We Need to Take Back Our Privacy.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 May 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/opinion/privacy-technology-data.html.

Cover image by tubik.arts on Dribbble.