How social media companies collect data beyond what you post.
More often than not, in the excitement and thrill of posting our latest story or post, we often tend to forget what more is being gathered by media platforms. A study shown by the firm pCloud found that Instagram, for instance, shares 75% of our data with third parties like advertising groups, including current location, financial information and browsing history. More of this information includes:
- Call history and texts, contacts and call logs
- Social interactions including your posts, content, accounts you follow and interaction mainly across all social media platforms relating to that company
- Device information, such as IP address, time zone, ISP and phone number
- Personal information, such as relationship status, religious views, political opinions, health etc
This collection of data from websites and media can also be referred to as “data scraping”, which is then stored in a database to analyse one’s preferences.
Websites, though, have a different method of gathering data: cookies. When one visits a website, your data and details in the form of cookies are stored, that is if you accept cookies. For instance, if you visit a shopping website and fill your card details, those are essentially the very details the website memory will store down. A different group of cookies, known as “third party cookies” allows different parties to communicate with each other. For instance, on a website if you see an instagram like button and click on it, you’ll be connected to the platform by third party cookies. This allows websites to stay connected with each other, and share information within them.
Us consumer’s data is highly valuable for companies, primarily to improve performance and product designs. For instance, smartphone companies monitor how their devices work on a regular, continuous basis in order to figure out how to improve their battery life. With significant information gathered about a person, businesses are able to send advertisements to people who are more likely to buy or use their services, which in return also reduces the capital used for their advertising spends. This method adds efficiency to the company, by tracking what people buy and are more inclined towards. For cookies, the more people visit a site, the more data and money subsequently a company receives.
However, the threat of hacking and cyber crimes lurk still, around this digital veil. Mainly, scammers and cyber criminals can “mine” profiles, that is analysing large data sets in order to gauge out patterns that can help solve business through data analysis. In this case, these cybercriminals use them for cyberattacks and to guess login credentials for instance. Moreover, social media provides a platform for them to launch attacks towards users, by sending malware through private messages. Real-time location sharing means to accommodate these hackers to identify where someone is at the moment.
Sextortion is a violation of privacy occurring when the cybercriminal, or sextortionists, specifically threatens their victims to release explicit images and videos of them, if they fail to meet the attacker’s demands. Phishing is also possible, social media encourages interactions between strangers and oneself based on common behaviors. If there’s a hacker amongst them, they can send unsolicited messages that require the other person to provide personal details, proving to be dangerous. Identity theft is also a possible consequence if crackers gain enough information about their victim. Furthermore, digital footprints exist for a long time. All posts on social media, including photos and comments, even deleted contents can be discovered at any time. Hence, it’s of utmost importance that users be conscious of what information they’re sharing, at any time.
So the question remains, what to do then? Each platform is led by certain terms and conditions, outlining their purpose and what the user should expect from them. A quick review of these terms and conditions which we often ignore, will provide insight on how that platform intends to use your personal information, and how you can therefore protect your digital privacy. At any time, users must be mindful of which information of theirs is visible. Personal information is not only collected by employers, marketers and law enforcers, but also hackers and data miners.
The best method for users to protect their data is by utilising a VPN (Virtual Private Network). This is an encrypted internet connection, enhancing security and privacy by limiting the amount of information companies can mine from one’s browsing history. In addition to that, it can disguise one’s IP address, internet searches, location and financial information. However, a VPN falls short in some cases because people alike are still able to see what you’ve posted or interacted with in platforms like Facebook. Privatising your profile and posts minimises the chances that your information will be used by risky third party users and strangers. Users must always refrain from accepted friend requests from strangers, and most importantly from accounts looking shady and fake.
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References:
https://xiphcyber.com/articles/social-media-tracking
Media Savvy Teens 
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