Itec 4205 - Privacy and Cyber Security

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law enforcement on cyber and financial crime, and supports law enforcement during investigations. In 2008, NW3C reported 275,284 complaints totaling $265 million in losses (NW3C, N.D.).

However, a much larger threat to privacy and cyber security is Big Data. This facet of cyber security involves every business that maintains a database of customer information. For example, your grocery store offers you a VIP card, which will give you coupons from time to time and allow you to purchase items at a discount vs. those who do not have the VIP card. Sounds like a great deal, but the grocery store is the one really making out on this exchange. Every time you use that VIP card, they are tracking your buying habits, keeping track of how often you purchase a given item and how many, etc. It is how they target which coupons to send you. Your car insurance company can offer you a special program as well. This program involves you adding a device to your car that monitors your speed and driving habits in exchange for discounted insurance rates. Many companies will debate that personally identifiable information can be removed from their data. Those companies may argue that removing the name associated with the data is sufficient for it to be considered de-identifiable, but if the data contains a home or work address this may not be the case. Companies must now disclose how they handle your personal information and must send consumers their privacy practices by state or federal law (Britton, 2016). It is also imperative that companies who store personal data on their customers or consumers protect their data from hackers and data breaches. In recent years, we have seen class action lawsuits against major organizations like Capital One and Facebook for violations of privacy, and Neiman Marcus and Target stores for data breaches (Data Breach Lawsuit, N.D.).

Another facet of cyber security is national security. With national security, one could postulate that in order to maintain privacy, we must also relinquish some privacy (Pozen, 2016). In a speech President Obama gave in January 2014, he discusses ways to balance security and privacy (Obama, 2014). Consider the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. In many ways, the 9/11 terrorist attacks brought our attention to a gaping hole in our nation’s security – that terrorists had set up cells right here at home. While we were focused on gathering intelligence from other countries, monitoring movement of known cells in their native homelands, small groups of terrorists were planning attacks on the United States while living right under our noses (Obama, 2014). So, just as previous historical events shaped the way we handle other security issues – in the same way the assassination of JFK undoubtedly changed the way the Secret Service handled the Presidential motorcade – the United States was forced to shift gears and monitor activity in our own backyard. However, we were once again faced with a dilemma of protecting citizens at the expense of impinging our civil rights. Consider Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing of NSA data collection of telephone records as one example of the legal and ethical issues facing us today. Snowden was contracted by the NSA to perform a job for them, and once he discovered the information being collected, he felt it was his duty to inform Americans that they were being monitored. He broke his employment contract, but many still consider him a patriot.

What many do not consider in the Snowden case, is that the type of information gathering needed to track phone records and spending habits of terrorist cells gives the government access to bulk data all over the world, and this data is not exclusive to the data retrieval on terrorist suspects’ accounts. While America was battered from the 9/11 attacks and looking for answers, some unethical practices were uncovered - such as wiretaps without warrants (Obama, 2014) - under the umbrella of national security. We may never know the full extent of what methods were used to bring the terrorists to justice, but I believe we feel safer knowing our government and military protected us.

The biggest technology problem we are facing is technological growth: our technology is advancing so rapidly that our laws cannot be adapted quickly enough to protect ourselves from it. The seemingly small task of presenting a bill into law is nowhere near as simple as we were led to believe in the sing-songs we learned in middle school Civics class. Under President Obama’s administration, he increased oversight of metadata gathering, continually updated Congress, but did not stop all the practices abruptly (Obama, 2014). Instead, he asked the Attorney General to explore options to end bulk data gathering and make what metadata is gathered less accessible by the government, or at the very least only accessible when needed.

So perhaps, in order to be protected as a nation, we may have to surrender what we have previously considered as private data to the greater good. We need to begin to trust our elected officials to have our best interests at heart, to use their power to speak for us on these matters, and have laws in place to limit their abuse of power (Obama, 2014).

REFERENCES:

Obama, B. (2014). Security and Privacy: In Search of a Balance. Vital Speeches Of The Day, 80(3), 102-107.

Britton, K. (2016). Handling Privacy and Security in the Internet of Things. Journal Of Internet Law, 19(10), 3.

Pozen, D. E. (2016). Privacy-Privacy Tradeoffs. University Of Chicago Law Review, 83(1), 221-247.

Smith, K. J. (2016). The Constitutional Right to Deletion: The Latest Battle in the War of Technology v. Privacy. New England Journal On Criminal & Civil Confinement, 42(1), 121-142.

Data Breach Lawsuit Legal News and Information (N.D.).

Internet Crime Complaint Center/ICC. (N.D.).

History of NW3C/NW3C. (N.D.)