- Gifts (small or insignificant rewards) in exchange for your private life?
In the US and other countries with strong market power and strategy, loyalty cards have been in place since the 1970s. With the information they contain, they become for commerce great tools for price reductions, giving us exactly what we are looking for in all types of stores. Best example: there are over 1000 types of debit cards in the US, each giving the consumer individual features for using their debit card.
For the consumer, sometimes generous price reductions are offered, depending on the degree of fidelity and spending in a particular store or network of stores. But behind this process, with the pooling of all these cards in a computer system, is hiding the best personal data collection system.
European legislation currently prevents these traders from reselling the data so collected, but in countries where the law is more permissive, we see a phenomenon that sometimes goes through harassing customers by using their data without control.
The compulsive consumer, the daily alcohol buyer or the simple fashion consumer, the vegetarian, the parent who buys presents for his children, etc. - all of them offer online data that is the basis of personalized offers, but they can also form the basis for completing the complex and complete psychological profiles of each individual consumer. Thus, your whole life can be offered in return for a few percent discount - it's your choice!
- Dangerous mergers for your convenience?
For many years, large companies that have been providing free online services have begun to multiply their offers: search engines have their own browsing applications (and vice versa), free mail and cloud services, direct access from one account to one Full panoply of other services.
Over the past three years, we are witnessing the massive buying of other companies providing online communications services or social networks, such as Microsoft's acquisition of Skype and, most recently, the largest online professional network, Linkedin .
On the part of the European authorities, no reaction, for the time being, the risk of being able to find, in the short term, strong monopolistic cartels, which are, in principle, prohibited by law. But what is most worrying for citizens is not the merger of services and companies themselves, but the control of these types of services by a single player and the data associated with their use, offered or generated by the user.
Who reads a contract with more than 80 pages displayed on the screen?
Corporations, of course, are increasingly escaping behind their own security systems, individuals behind the confidentiality settings they can adopt, but the question Arnaud Velten puts to us at the Aosta colloquium in March 2016: "Are you really aware of what you are signing?"
Purchase Cloud Services in a safe way to suit your privacy, store your most sensitive documents on memory sticks separated from network-connected computer systems, but before and before you read the articles of online consumer logs available: you Find summaries of all findings on the levels of intrusion into the privacy of the various platforms and services available today on the free, paid or paid free market you are already using or wanting to use.Dependent on smartphone - the perfect victim!
Never an intelligence agency ever dreamed of a spy tool so perfect as the smartphone currently used by most citizens. Permanent geographical location, permanent connectivity, applications and programs with multiple infections, video camera, camera, microphone - all in one device and almost permanent to a person!
To better illustrate this, let's take, for example, one of the many applications that allow your phone to be used as a flashlight. What services or data does it have access to?
Identity and status of the smartphone;
Can make, without authorization, photos and videos with the camcorder;
Read, modify, or delete information contained on the memory cards available to your terminal;
Full access to the Internet, your Internet and WiFi connections and data reception (without mentioning any restrictions);
Collection of data related to other applications are functional on the terminal;
Stopping or blocking the terminal input to sleep mode;
Change the terminal settings.
Simply, to get light, are you willing to "donate the devil's soul"?