#institutional privacy

[vrtchallenge-blog]

http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/cultuur%2Ben%2Bmedia/media/1.2153229

Jongeren weten te weinig over hoe privacy werkt in sociale media, en hoe ze die moeten beschermen. Velen weten niet hoe de privacysettings werken, of waar ze die zelfs kunnen vinden.

Er wordt een verschil gemaakt tussen social privacy (tusesn vrienden en kenissen), en institutional privacy (tussen privébedrijven of de overheid). Ook veel mensen kennen de gevolgen van deze twee categorieën niet.

[fans-users-gamers-blog]

Credit Cards or Cash?

           Almost everyone goes out and “shops ‘till they drop” at some point in their lives. But, what most customers don’t know, is that whatever they are buying with the swipe of their credit card, is also being tracked by data-miners. This information shows what you need or want as a shopper and what coupons would make you happiest. The article “How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did” shows how this data caused issues with a father and his actually pregnant daughter, but how Target ducked and dived around it. Target (and many other stores) have found many ways around your social and institutional privacy, which is the fear of personalized information being compromised (social) and the skepticism about the use of personal data for purposes such as personalized ads (institutional). Is this right or is it even allowed?

           A trip to target and the swipe of your credit card automatically puts you on the board to be tracked. In the article “How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did,” Hill explains the course of action: “Target assigns every customer a Guest ID number, tied to their credit card, name, or email address that becomes a bucket that stores a history of everything they’ve bought and any demographic information Target has collected from them or bought from other sources.” Once you have entered the race, Target starts watching your buying patterns. They took information from other women who were pregnant and saw the connection among typical products being purchased. This allowed them to put “pregnancy predictions” on women buying the same or alike products. Once Target saw a woman with a high prediction score, they sent out coupon booklets for diapers, strollers, or the basic “baby on the way” purchases. Target made a mistake by sending a high school girl’s father a pregnancy coupon book addressed to her. The outraged father immediately took action and approached Target about the coupons. He later found out that his daughter was, unfortunately, pregnant.

           The article explained in the afore-mentioned paragraph, brought attention to social and institutional privacy. Us shoppers who use credit cards as a means of payment aren’t able to protect ourselves over the data being collected from us. In the reading “Privacy Protection Strategies on Facebook,” Quan-Haase and Alyson Young mention that: “users are more concerned about controlling who has access to their personal information rather than how companies and third parties will use their information.” Target has found ways that customers can’t keep personal information from them, such as their shopping habits. It is not found illegal to keep data on shoppers. Target has made coupon books more “creeper friendly.” By this, I mean they disguise their coupon books. If they believe you are pregnant, they will put a stroller then a lawn mower then diapers, so it seems more random. But, does this solve the issue of Target sticking their nose in their customer’s personal buys? Not at all. As Quan-Haase and Alyson Young have mentioned many ways to protect yourself with privacy, Target has still found ways to avoid it.

           Whether it be right or wrong, Target and many other stores will always find ways around the law OR your personal privacy to increase revenue for their business. The only way to keep your social and institutional privacy via shopping in-store would be using cash instead of card. Credit cards are the source of all data. They hold so much personal information that can be easily seen and tracked. How can this be allowed? This question still baffles me. I believe we should have control over who views information on our credit cards because, after all, we are the ones paying the bill at the end of each month.

Young, Alyson Leigh, and Anabel Quan-Haase. 2013. “Privacy Protection Strategies on Facebook.” Information, Communication & Society 16 (4): 479–500. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2013.77775

Hill, Kashmir. 2012. “How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did.” Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/.