Online privacy
Online privacy refers to the right of individuals to control the collection, use, and sharing of their personal information in the digital space. As the internet and social media platforms have proliferated, concerns regarding online privacy have intensified, particularly regarding the vast amounts of personal data shared and stored without users' full awareness. This data encompasses sensitive information like credit card details, social security numbers, and personal preferences, often collected through routine online activities. Social media users, especially teenagers, are particularly vulnerable, frequently sharing personal information that can lead to risks such as cyberbullying and predation.
Legal frameworks in the U.S., like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, lag behind technological advancements, making it challenging to address contemporary privacy issues effectively. High-profile breaches, such as the Cambridge Analytica incident involving Facebook, have amplified public concern about data security and the potential misuse of personal information. Moreover, the evolving landscape of data privacy laws is shifting toward a rights-based approach, similar to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), granting individuals greater control over their personal data. As awareness of these issues grows, many individuals express skepticism about the ability of social media companies to protect their privacy, underscoring the need for informed practices and regulations in the digital age.
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Online privacy
With the growth of the internet in the last decade of the twentieth century and the rise of social media platforms in the early twenty-first century, the right to privacy took on a new urgency and raised issues that were never part of traditional privacy rights before the digital age. Information routinely given or obtained online includes everything from credit card information and Social Security numbers to preferences in movies, books, and films—all of which is stored or disseminated without the knowledge of the individuals involved. It is estimated that 99 percent of online consumer data is never analyzed; however, it remains available. Social media platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Instagram allow individuals to post personal information and photos to hundreds or even thousands of “friends” with a single click. Young people are particularly vulnerable to threats created by this lack of privacy. Nevertheless, they frequently give out personal information on the internet, putting themselves in the position to become ideal targets for cyberbullying and sexual predation. A number of teenage suicides and murders have been traced to the aftermath of such activities.
Overview
In the United States, the law dealing most specifically with online privacy is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which was passed before the explosion of the internet and the advent of social media. In 2012, the amount of data online reached 2.8 zettabytes (10007 bytes). By 2024, online data consumption had increased to 149 zettabytes. Most of that data is created by individuals engaged in routine activities such as creating, moving, or downloading files, searching the internet, or interacting on social media. Other data is created by surveillance technologies that routinely scan public buildings, shopping malls, apartment buildings, and public streets. Mobile phones regularly send out digital information identifying the location of callers.
While individuals regularly post privacy concerns on Facebook and Twitter, they continue to share information openly with friends. Such information may also be shared with friends of friends or become available to the public, depending on individual privacy settings. Information requests are so common on social networking sites that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Dropbox have all developed their own guidelines for law enforcement.
In 2013, allegations surfaced that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was regularly violating online privacy rights through implementation of the PRISM Program. Using an “immersion” tool, the NSA was regularly collecting data from social media, internet search media, emails, and voice-over-IP sessions to create digital profiles of millions of US citizens who have never been formally accused of any crime. The public outcry over this activity, coupled with outrage over the Verizon Metadata program uncovered by whistleblower Edward Snowden, resulted in a number of lawsuits being filed, and new bills were introduced at the state level to combat what was viewed as a violation of online privacy rights.
Children and teenagers using social media are less likely than adults to be concerned about privacy or to understand how to protect themselves. All sorts of personal information, including names, street addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, the names of family members, and education and work histories, are shared on social media sites. According to a 2013 study conducted by Pew Internet and American Life Project and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, 95 percent of White teens and 77 percent of Black teens used their real names on Facebook. Forty percent of teenagers shared Facebook profiles with anyone rather than restricting information to their “friends.” In 2011, the Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with Facebook in which the company agreed to take initiatives to ensure that the site's users' data would not be used outside of their chosen privacy settings, as many people had lodged complaints regarding deceitful sharing of information.
Major concerns have been raised over the safety of children and youths who use social media and those who use the internet to play games, listen to music, watch videos, conduct searches, follow celebrities, and engage in a host of other activities. While it is generally believed that parents should teach their children about online privacy and safety, many parents remain technologically illiterate. The American Association of Pediatrics warned parents in a March 2011 report that children and adolescents were not only ignoring the need for online privacy but were also leaving behind well-defined digital footprints that could affect their futures, potentially providing lifestyle information that could negatively impact on their abilities to be admitted to the colleges of their choice or to obtain jobs for which they were otherwise qualified.
In March 2018, social media users became increasingly concerned about whether their personal information stored online through these sites was truly protected. That month, it was revealed that the data of more than fifty million Facebook users had been sold to the data research firm Cambridge Analytica, and that this information may then have been used to target political advertising during the 2016 presidential election. While the data was obtained through an app and survey that many users voluntarily took part in, it has been argued that users were unaware as to how exactly that information would be used; additionally, Cambridge Analytica also had access to the data of millions of friends of the users who initially participated. Following this breach of privacy, as many people began boycotting and protesting Facebook, Pew Research Center released a report showing that as of 2017, less than 10 percent of social media users felt "very confident" that the companies overseeing the sites would protect their personal data.
In the 2020s, data privacy laws in the US started to shift from preventing and mitigating harm through a mix of privacy protection laws at the state and federal level to a rights-based approach like the one codified in the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2016. The rights-based approach is predicated on an individual's legal right to own and control their own personal information and its use. In 2023, GDPR-inspired state laws took effect in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia.
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