Is
women’s privacy a myth on the internet?
Women are constantly put
on scrutiny; be it while walking in the streets or a coworker making crass comments
in a conference. While the women have been a victim of sexism, regressive
judgments and sexual harassments in person, women online are no longer safe as
well. With the internet opening a tsunami of men and women from different
fields of life have the freedom to communicate among one another, online harassment
is a hot button issue in recent times.
“Privacy matters
because it is my fundamental right but sadly, it’s compromisedâ€. The
safety and security of the Internet impacts us all. We should be able to
understand what is happening to our data and we should have the ability to
control the usage of it.
From the phones in our pockets to the biometric databases that
identify us to government officials, our personal stake in digital security is
growing. You can have ‘nothing to hide’ and still not want to be targeted by
aggressive advertisers or snoopers.
Source:- https://internethealthreport.org/v01/privacy-and-security/
Usage of the internet opens
up a can of worms; dangers that we need to be aware of. In recent times, the
expectation of privacy has been reduced to a thin line. While one is subconsciously
aware of the data we share online (For e.g. credit card details, pictures on
social media etc.), chances are that it can be accessed, stored and shared in
many ways to throw the data sharer in a difficult position as a consumer. This
is relevant especially for women as several studies and experts have concluded.
According to a study
conducted by the University of Washington to assess the perception of privacy
in a public place, especially where the surveillance is not related to
security, ‘Women are more concerned than men about their privacy, both as
watcher and the watched.’
You might think that you
might be an unlikely target but, in this blog, let us have a look through the
severe privacy issues victimizing the women and ways we can protect ourselves
from them:
Pregnancy/Fertility apps:
More than 100 million
women monitor their cycles on their phones, says a blog in Bloomberg news. Fertility apps
/menstrual tracking apps/pregnancy-related apps are too many. The number keeps
on growing. I am sure this helps, but is it safe to use them? The answer is No.
A significant privacy
issue has been reported in Glow-one of the widely used pregnancy-related apps.
That particular app had a major flaw that could let anyone who knew a user’s
email address access that person’s data, according to an investigation by Consumer Reports. That’s a significant concern because that particular app prompts
users to reveal a lot, including the last time they had sex (and in what
position), how many drinks they have had each day, etc.
Note:- Glow reportedly
made immediate moves to fix the security problems with their app and issued a
satisfactory update to their app after Consumer Reports notified them of the
vulnerabilities.
A 2014 Federal Trade Commission study of the larger health app market, in which period-tracking
apps are a significant player, also found that many of the apps the agency
reviewed shared users’ information with third-party advertising and analytics
firms.
There is no proper
HIPAA- compliant apps in the market currently. So, women’s privacy is not being
protected in this space.
Female Fitness apps/Fitness wearable devices:
There are various fitness
apps specific for women that are available in the market. The question is: Is
it even safe to use? Absolutely not.
Most of these fitness
apps are free to use. We trust them and log our daily activities and even share
our sensitive personal health details such as BMI, heart rate, log our food intake,
etc.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations that require patient-doctor
confidentiality do not apply to
wearable devices or the data they collect, making any device or app that
monitors health information risky, said Mark Weinstein, a privacy advocate and
founder of social media site MeWe.
“Here’s the reality of
life as a wearable device owner — there’s no doctor/patient privacy or patient
privacy or any privacy, for that matter,†he said. “Monitoring yourself with a
fitness tracking app that is collecting data is like publishing your own
medical autobiography online. These neat little devices are hard to resist, but
I will admire fitness tracking apps from afar.â€
Strava, which is as much
a social network for runners and cyclists as a fitness-tracking app developer, faced scrutiny last year over worries its global
heat map — which uses GPS
information to map the activity of millions of users — could reveal secret
military bases and troop movements around the world. Strava claims they have
addressed the issues post that issue.
Strava is just an
example, but in reality, none of the apps are safe and will breach your privacy.
Safety apps:
There are so many safety
apps circulating across with a promise to keep women safer. Mostly these apps
take inputs such as location, contact details, etc. to keep women safe.
It is becoming an
industry-wide practice to harvest personal data of users and monetize it. But
are safety apps doing the same?
Maybe not, but it is
ironic. How can apps claim to enhance your safety if they are treating your
sensitive personal information with complete carelessness? For example,
location information, being sensitive data, should be turned off after specific
uses, say security gurus. Yet safety apps encourage users to do the very opposite, as
their very premise is that users should leave their location information on in
anticipation of danger. At the same time, the people who develop and market
these apps do not commit to keeping your data safe.
Social media platforms/Multiple digital apps:
This is one of the most
popular platforms where someone loses their privacy. Say for example, once we
upload our photo on any of our social media websites, the photo belongs to that
company and they can even monetize the data.
Let’s look at another
example. A woman was contacted by a fellow passenger from a shared Lyft ride
who pieced together information from their ride — her name was derived from the Lyft app and the work logo on her
sweatshirt — to find out her work email.
While some harms go
unaddressed, others find solutions. 70% of women say online harassment is a
“major problem.†Deepfakes, revenge porn and stalkware apps are becoming major
concerns. These hacks are attacking most of women emotionally as well.
Online shopping websites:
I am sure, a lot of us
have searched about “some celebrities diet chart in Google†and immediately in
our shopping apps, “Detox tea†was added automatically as a suggestion.
Professor Ann Bartow of
the University Of New Hampshire School of Law, in Our Data, ourselves:
Privacy, Propertization, and Gender, opines that “unregulated online
data collection is a threat to all consumers. Because women do most of the
shopping, and most of the “sharing,†in meet space, and their presence is
increasing in cyberspace, they are most vulnerable to the slings and arrows of
online consumer profilers.†She further argues that the collection of
information online is of “singular importance to women.â€
This is primarily
because women control the spending habits and patterns of their households,
making them a special target for the collection of information and profiling
based on the data collected. Bartow argues that online data collection needs to
be regulated to prevent women from being targeted.
Hacking of personal devices:
Nowadays there are most
of the devices which get connected to the internet such as cars, refrigerators, toys and
all manner of devices, and the risks for both surveillance and malicious hacks
are growing. In November 2016, a malware program called Mirai mobilized 100,000 connected devices, including webcams and baby monitors, in a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDOS) that briefly took down parts of the Internet.
The hackers mostly
attack webcams as well. So many privacy issues are there for women in these
scenarios.
Surveys:
There are multiple
surveys circulating every day on multiple topics and in multiple places. Right
from purchasing a dress to eat in a restaurant, everywhere surveys are
available. In most of the companies, “Women specific surveys/gender equality
surveys†are the most common. Are we even safe to answer these questions? Are
we sure the results will not be published to all, even though we answered as
anonymous? The answer is “Noâ€. Anonymous surveys are simply not anonymous.
In a horrendous and
bizarre incident involving online surveys, around 6 million accounts were hacked
from CashCrate — a site that facilitates users to take online surveys and get
paid in return. This breach allowed hackers to have access to accounts that
were created as early as 2006. The hacked data included — email addresses,
passwords, physical addresses and names of users.
2018 — June 27, the day
Spanish online survey firm — Typeform, realized that there was a security breach causing the firm to lose private
survey data of tens of thousands of its customers using their platform. Hackers
gained access to everything from personal details to email addresses and other
private information that has put many survey participants at risk. Reddit
suffered heavy damage as personal details of its large-scale users’ surveys
were exposed.
Source:- https://medium.com/blocksurvey/why-blocksurvey-org-52ef22e5f09
The above examples throw
light on the areas where our privacy is compromised and impacts us severely.
Now let’s have a look at the solutions to prevent this issue.
Solution:
One would ideally expect
that there will be a solution to all the above-mentioned issues in the next-gen
internet (Web 3.0). There are few promising solutions available such as “Brave — A secure, fast and
private web browser â€, “DuckDuckGo- A safe and secure search engine †and several decentralization
applications built on blockchain platforms.
One such effective
platform is Blockstack. Blockstack is a decentralized computing platform that puts users
in control of their data and identity. Apps built on Blockstack make data
breaches and trust violations an antiquated notion.
There are multiple
alternatives for the above-said privacy application issues addressed by
Blockstack DAPPs.
Few Examples include:
Blocksurvey — Privacy-focused, surveys, polls and forms platform.
Compress Studio -A serverless image
compression tool with a decentralized private storage.
OI chat — A universal secure
chat app.
Some women developers
worked on creating amazing apps in the new era of the internet as well. Few are
listed below.
Dcasso- Decentralized doodling
app
POW!- A secure period
tracking app.
Dappity — A launchpad for all Blockstack apps.
Call-To-Action:
Privacy issues are very
serious and it’s common for both the gender, but women privacy issues are more
serious and often very critical which affects women psychologically as
well.
“If you don’t like
something, you can opt-out of it†is something we hear a lot in the
consumer-facing tech world — whether it’s Facebook news feed spam, incessant
push notifications, or location-tagged posts or multiple other apps “.
But this approach is not
right. In the digital world, nothing is safer but that doesn’t mean women
should not come over to the digital world. “Having a safe, secure and
privacy-oriented digital world is need of the hour “.
A big shout out to all
the women to empower together, explore alternatives such as Blockstack for your
Identity and step towards building a new safe and secure digital world for
ourselves and the future!
References:
https://medium.com/slamtrade/why-women-need-privacy-focused-internet-c184c8e1366f
Washington
Post on period tracking app issues.
Internet
democracy blog on safety app.
Medium
blog on women’s digital privacy.
Internet
health report blog on Privacy and security.
Blog on
to why women need privacy protection
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/news-features/digital-privacy-is-a-feminist-issue