Online Privacy: Risks, Challenges, and New Trends

Abstract

Being on the Internet implies constantly sharing information, personal or not. Nowadays, preserving privacy is not an easy feat: technology is growing too fast, leaving legislation far behind and the level of security awareness is insufficient. Websites and Internet services are collecting personal data with or without the knowledge or consent of users. Not only does new technology readily provide an abundance of methods for organizations to gather and store information, people are also willingly sharing data with increasing frequency, exposing their intimate lives on social media websites. Online data brokers, search engines, data aggregators, geolocation services and many other actors on the web are monetizing our online presence for their own various purposes. Similarly, current technologies including digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, cloud computing/SaaS, big data, BYOD are posing serious problems for individuals and businesses alike. Data loss is now a common event and the consequences are exceedingly damaging. Although there are means at our disposal to limit or at least acknowledge how and what we’re sharing, most do not avail themselves of these tools and so the current situation remains unacceptable. Many privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) have been available for some time, but are not effective enough to prevent re-identification and identity theft.