Maybe I Should Start Reading Privacy Statements…

In my Black Mirror and Digital Culture class we have recently been reading literature related to the topic of digital consumer. That theme covers a large variety of topics but I will focus on specifically on privacy statements and what they mean. Privacy statements are legal documents that discloses some of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages people’s data.Very few people actually take the time to read the privacy statements because they are often very lengthy and difficult to comprehend. I recently reviewed Tinder’s privacy statement and it is composed of 14 sections and that version has been in effect as of May 25, 2019. The sections range on topics from the information Tinder collects and how they use it and who they are it with. The privacy statement is surprisingly very easy to comprehend and for the most part fairly concise in comparison to previous privacy statements I have read. Tinder is a very popular app especially on college campuses so I decided to speak with a peer about privacy statements, more specifically Tinder’s.

An article titled Education Technology and Data Insecurity written by Audrey Watters she discussed how we are so willing to give out our information without thinking twice. We fail to realize where this information goes and how much of it sites are collecting and that it is cumulative. She raises questions about what will happen to all the information collected and what may be concluded from it. Although she was specifically talking about information collected by educational systems the same thing applies for internet applications and websites. We need to become more informed on what we give Internet sites and applications access to and protect our data. We unknowingly give out our information to sites without thinking about the possible repercussions or where this information goes, but we all need and deserve privacy and in order to acquire we must take the extra steps to inform ourselves then inform others.