We live in a society where it is impossible not to be somehow connected to a device. Social media controls control most people’s lives and logging on is necessity amongst most people. Our phones are basically handheld computers that allow is access to thousands of online materials that give us information in the blink of an eye, and this is considered one of the greatest feats of human kind. Without technology the world would not be what we see it as now and many would never want to see a world without it. But is our world completely adapted to the tech that changes our lives?
Recently, Samsung has faced legal battles over invading privacy of their consumers. What had happened was, Samsung was using the microphones in their smart TVs to listen to conversations of their users and collect marketing data. Samsung would use this data to determine ads to play and also get customer feedback for their TVs. However, Samsung was doing this without consent. The users had no idea that their conversations were being listened to and that Samsung was collecting data. So was Samsung violating privacy laws because they did not have the consent to collect conversations from their consumers, well its complicated.
See the issue is that while technology may have adapted to make life easier for users, the legal system and laws overall have not caught up. On legal grounds there is blurred lines on whether or Samsung broke any laws. Ethically what they did is obviously not right but as far as the law is concerned, there was no law broken. This is the case with many technology issues. The law changes and adapts after there is clear and established societal belief on how tech can be used.
Another similar situation is the Facebook app. Ever notice how it asks permission to use the microphone but you yourself never use the microphone when in the app. That’s because what is doing is listening to talk and in conversations to determine what ads you would like to see while the app is running. This idea of data mining occurs all over the use of tech but the law has not caught up to what is ok and what is not. Facebook isn’t breaking any laws either even though you never knew it wasn’t listening to you.
It’s probably common not to be content with the fact that many of your favorite tech giants are invading your privacy but also that there is no law stopping them from doing so. This piece was simply created to show how there is a severe lack of laws that protect users and how the slow the legal system is to react. Technology itself already harbors some sketchy consequences with hacking and severe cases like ratters but companies too can find ways to abuse the users that have made their success.
