TOPICS

Topics

Topics

Impact of IT on privacy

Privacy can be broadly defined as "the right to be left alone". Although it is recognized as a basic right, it is not absolute, as it may be the case within some other basic rights according to the Law. The duty to respect a persons' privacy allows exemptions; e.g. police or Government may have the right to obtain personal information from the citizens in order to ensure social order and harmony.

Marketing and Privacy are connected with a link, which is called information. Information is an absolute vital for the business and economic community in today's "Information Age". On the one hand, information is the starting point of Management, Marketing and Customer Relations. Without knowing in depth customers' conscious and unconscious needs and wants, the top management can not make decisions on policies. On the other hand, people need their privacy to live free. Freedom is one of the highest values of individuals. It looks like two opposite powers have risen, which have brought many debatable issues and ethical dilemmas and will test our level of civilization. There are four types of personal information:

Private Communications

Privacy of the body

Personal Information

Possessions

Private Communications refer to a private conversation such as: The CEO of a company discussing some private strategic issues with another CEO and both want this conversation to remain confidential. If somebody records this conversation and sells it to the media, he has violated the privacy of communications right. A company may want to know private physical information of their potential customers for medical reasons. Amazon Company, among most of the companies today, holds personal information of customer's addresses, credit card information and other sensitive details (mobile phone numbers etc.). All the threats that exist in today's inter-connected world include but are not limited to the following.

Money theft

Many Computer crimes involve the theft of money. A good example is the theft of $11 million from Citibank in late 1994. A Russian hacker Vladimir Levin in St. Petersburg used the Internet to electronically break into Citibank's mainframe systems in New York. He then succeeded in transferring the funds from several Citibank accounts to his own accounts at banks in Finland, Israel and California. If money theft on-line is possible regardless the encryption then what about simple pieces of private information?

Fraud

The widespread use of the Internet for commercial purposes has multiplied the many ways that criminals and scammers can harm the unsuspicious. E - Commerce and the extended use of credit cards and other forms of money multiplied the ways someone can steal. In the off-line world, of course, there exists the same danger but one can find ways to be protected. In the on-line world with the use of system networks, someone based in other parts of the world can rob another's credit card number.

Cookies

Cookies are software programs that companies use to gather information about visitors to their websites. A cookie can track the times we visit a site, record moves between pages and store registration information that may later ...