Privacy on the Internet

An article on bbc.co.uk which talks about human rights stated that humans have the right to their own privacy. However with the emergence of the information highway (internet) the ability for the government and private sector to collect and record information has grown to a worrying degree.

The internet being a multimodal(Walsh 2006)medium, has enable people to enter their personal information and send it across vast amount of space in a blink of an eye. However, the problem is that they do not realize that it is possible for hackers tap into their information.

Moreover, most website these days only require your e-mail address to identify you however, this too could become a privacy risk as additional information could be acquired from there. (Clarke 1998).

The internet has many function and most of them have forms which are appealing (Bear 2007). One of them is that it has a great potential where people such as long lost friends may locate each other online. This has a great power as it combines existing sources such as phone books which have been digitalizes and new sources such as archives from social website such as friendster.com.Services such as these could be great for some people. However there are times in which they could be a pesk or even life threatening (Clarke 1998).



A socializing website where they require you to fill in your personal detail and makes it viewable to the public

Moreover, people are posing personal videos online which further expose them to the anybody with evil intentions.

Example of personal videos

As much as we adults are vulnerable to exposing ourself on the internet, kids are in even deeper trouble then we are. The Internet has thousands of attractive forms with the main target audience being kids.


Interactive website for kids who ask them to register through online forms.

Marketers have manage to build numerous websites that has interactive multimodal function which will attract and hold kids attention for hours for example barbiedoll.net which features a wide array of activities. These activities not only entertain the kids, but also build their relationship with the product. Advertisers then collect information from the kids through online registration forms. This could be risky for the kids.

Thus it is important to be constantly aware on what is going on while surfing the net or when a website request some information from you. It is however, doubly important that we be aware of what our own kids are doing while they surf the net. It is our responsibility as elders to educate them lease they fall into marketing gimmick of worst still, stalkers.



Reference

Bear J.H 2007, ‘Form and Function in Design and Publishing’, www.desktoppub.about.com/od/graphicdesign/a/formfunction.htm, viewed 25 May 2008.

Clarke R 1998, 'Information Privacy On the Internet Cyberspace Invades Personal Space', www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/IPrivacy.html, viewed June 9th 2008.

'Human Rights Act: What the articles say', BBC News, www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/946400.stm, Viewed 10th June 2008.

'Information Privacy and Children' Media Awareness Network, www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/privacy/compromised_privacy.cfm, Viewed June 9th 2008.

Walsh, M 2006, Australian Journal of Language and Leteracy, The ‘texture shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australia, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37