Online Privacy: "I Have Nothing To Hide"

Privacy on the Internet is very important, but it’s not as easy to achieve as one may think. We often believe our information is safe because a website is said to be “secure” or we have selected the “private” option on our social media account. Although we may feel our information is safe many will say that if it is on the Internet, it isn’t private.

            Whether or not people think they have nothing to hide on the Internet, everyone has information that should be kept secret. Information such as our address, phone numbers and credit cards are not something the common person wants to release to the public. The scary part is if a person with the right amount of knowledge want to find out this secret information, it is very much possible. We constantly enter this information online anytime we make a purchase or fill out an application/form. Many people are capable of hacking into websites where they can access an entire database of information from phone numbers to emails. Each computer we use also has a different IP address. This unique set of numbers is left at every website we visit and can roughly track down a user to their exact location. Although many websites we use such as Amazon are safe, the information is only as private as the websites security. There is always a chance of a possible breach in the system as we saw with Target. Our information may seem private, but it’s not impossible for others to make it public.