Social networking is used by most people who has access to the Internet. In technologically advanced to developing countries, social networking is showing its significant footprint. But are we really secure? What happens to our personal information over the years, how can we be sure it will not be used against us for example in the form of targeted marketing? These are some of the questions we need to seek answers to.
Many people who use social media are not aware of its negative consequences, loss of privacy being one of them. Social media and privacy don’t go hand in hand. When using social media we are living a digital fingerprint of our activities online. It might be a simple status update for an individual but if an adversary is interested and incentivized, it can be misused. Social networking site collects, processes and stores information from its users. The service provider might have a privacy policy, which explains that its intention is to collect only the required information for its own internal purpose. Conversely, the information are used for marketing of products by other third parties.
Some of the potential risks to privacy from the use of social media are:
- Identity theft
- Surveillance/Cyberstalking
- Online fraud/Scam victimization
On the other hand, if utilized correctly, social media can be a great resource, for example, in situations of havoc. Recently, social media were utilized to share information during the devastating earthquake that happened in Nepal. After the earthquake, social media was one of the main source of information for many people, especially, for the ones living aboard who were trying to gather information about their loved ones. Facebook helped to gather donations and Google created people finder page, which are some great ways of its utilization.