Although computer crime and security
breaches are a fact of life some consumers
still retain unreasonable expectations
about the security of data online. Those
expectations will require improved surveillance
and dataveillance that could lessen individual
privacy more than it already is.
Surveillance, privacy and dataveillance
are interwoven with the individual legal,
civil and democratic rights of the general
public but the upsurge in web-based cyber
crime has made those rights saleable commodities
in the information age.
Information technologies like searchable
data bases and data mining enable agencies
to reveal where you have been on a mobile
phone or, by using a piece of software,
are able to analyse your path as you click
your way through the web. Psychological
profiles can be easily built from that
information and those profiles in turn
become commodities saleable to the highest
bidder. So the erosion of individual privacy
continues unabated.
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Increasing cyber crime, along with surveillance,
dataveillance and the steady erosion of
privacy, has become one inevitable human dimension
of information technology.
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