There are many conspiracies about people watching, is it the government or the people in the “running the world” or the Illuminati. In my opinion, I do not think the government is watching everyone. Canada has a population of about 38 million. The government has bigger issues than watching the people. The FBI might be using tools and devices to watch criminals, but not the whole population. So who is spying?
The Spies
The real spies are social media apps. If you read through the Terms and Conditions of some companies, you will notice that if you sign up they will have permission to look at your personal information. Recently, Whatsapp has stated in their policy that they will use information obtained from their customers. Since Whatsapp is under Facebook/Meta, they will have to follow their policy as well. Some companies may lie about not spying but they are spying. Facebook got caught selling people’s personal information. They had to go through a court process, in 2019.
Facebook spying?
Facebook was accused of conducting mass surveillance through its apps, according to Guardian.com Article. Facebook owns about 91 social media apps, such as Instagram, Whatsapp, and LightBox.com. I can tell through the ads. When you speak about a product and you see multiple ads on the product. It can become very annoying, but there are ways to reduce spying.
How to control the spying
- VPN
VPN, meaning Virtual Private Network. It protects you from hackers or spies. It will protect your location by changing the location name. You might be living in Canada, but it says you are in Mexico. It might be expensive, but you can survive on free trials.
2. Manage your Cookies
Many people accept Cookies but do not know what they do. A cookie is like a reminder for your browser. When you search for something, it will remember what you searched up. This also applies to websites as well. You searched up a website once, and you keep seeing ads for the website you searched up. You can go to your settings in your browser and manipulate it, to reduce the spying.
3. Anti-Malware
Anti-Malware is software that protects your computer from viruses. People could put a virus on your computer that can help them extract personal information from you.
Source: PUREVPN
The question is, are they using our information for good or bad?
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 