As I go about my day, I rarely think about how my privacy is being violated. we use our phones, tiny supercomputers we carry around in our pockets, but little do we think about how we may be tracked or potentially seen as a threat. After learning more about Five Eyes, I was only a little surprised that some of the world's leading governments have been tracking us to monitor whether or not a citizen is a terrorist. I am surprised that this group was hidden for so long.
Savanna's presentation taught me more about Five Eyes, a secret surveillance organization run by 5 world governments to keep tabs on everything we do. The reasoning of terrorism is always used, but it really does make you, as a citizen, think, how much data does my government have on me. Now that they are out as a group, there is more reason in my mind for people to start taking actions to protect their data. However, not many people knew about this group before some information released. In fact, I really do not know if people around the world still know this group exists.
The start of Five Eyes happened shortly after the conclusion of World War II, as the United States and the United Kingdom continued to maintain country relations after the war. The United States and the United Kingdom created the UKUSA Agreement in 1946 with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand joining shortly after. Each member of the group can theoretically cover a different "region" of the globe, depending on the proximity of the country to one another. In doing so, these countries have access to information of their own citizens, as well as people and countries who are close by.
Being a part of the organization gives these countries the ability to keep tabs on their citizens and who can be seen as a threat, since other countries collect data and information and share among the group. Other countries have been known to want to have that connection of secrecy with the US and other countries, meaning more countries want the ability to keep tabs on their citizens without being found out. The only line the group does not cross when it comes to spying and keeping tabs is that they do not gather information of other world leaders who are members of the group.
The organization has been around since the 1940s, and I am concerned that I did not know about Five Eyes beforehand. As we were taught in class, as well as what I have seen in the news, a lot of news that is designated "more important" or more "fear-inducing" is brought up into the forefront, when other pieces of news seem to be pushed to the side. Ever since the growth of technology, using the internet has always been a mixed bag. The systems that we use each day are the same systems we allow to track what we do and say, often thanks to cookies we choose to use willingly. The governments have taken advantage of the internet to observe what we like and dislike, and use it to link who we are as people, at a much faster rate than we were a few years ago. I personally feel a bit ashamed that I have not been more careful to keep my interests a bit more secretive when using the internet, but there are steps that we can take to be more cautious online.
As I have mentioned previously, Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, help keep your data safe from being tracked online. VPNs are mainly designed to keep your data encrypted until it reaches its destination, to protect from hackers and scanning systems that try to scan and read data only meant for one person. Some good VPNs to look into include ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and SurfSharkVPN. Most of these VPNs may cost you some, but it is worth it to keep your data and sharing safe in the long run. The video above goes into more detail about what a VPN is and isn't, as well as what it is designed to do. Clearing your browser history would also help to keep yourself safe as, in a way, your browser and search history are "footprints" to who you are, where you have been online, and what your interests are. So being careful and aware of what you search can help you to be much safer online. Also, disabling cookies for sites you don't use or frequently visit can help you to limit how your information. Passwords are a big thing as well, as there are many different ways to keep yourself safe through passwords that are easy to remember, yet hard for others to guess.
After hearing about Five Eyes, it is concerning with how much my government knows about me already, as well as what is gained every time I log in. I want to practice being more safe, but I do fear that based on recent issues of race in our country, I could be put at much more of a risk of racial discrimination in the systems we use today. As I become more aware of how we operate in our systems, I want to be smarter in the things I search, the websites I visit, and the information I share when I go online.
No comments:
Post a Comment