Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy and confidentiality play an integral role within the confines of new media. As new media continues to grow, develop, and become a larger piece of our lives, it becomes crucial for privacy and confidentiality to have a strong and formidable presence within all aspects and activities that make up new media. For example, the way we shop for items has changed considerably over the years; we go to online venues and websites to shop for clothing as well as other items such as jewelry, makeup, and electronics. Privacy and confidentiality are crucial to this new habit, I think when credit/debit card information is given to these different websites we need to be absolutely sure that the website has a good level of security so that our information is not hacked and used against us. New media makes things more transparent, such as the article called “University of Maryland Computer Security Breach Exposes 300,000 Records” written by Patrick Svitek and Nick Anderson suggested. This article discussed how 300,000 records of people within the University of Maryland were jeopardized through a hack job that had access to the social security numbers of these people. New media adds a dangerous factor of transparency so that these types of information become available to the wrong group of people who have the right skill set to pry through databases and steal the information. I think this article depicted the need for constant growth in terms of security and perversion of private information leakage. Another interesting article, called “The Wild West of Privacy” written by Joe Nocera discussed how Google or Facebook compile and amass information on its users which are then sold to marketing firms. I think this is important for the public to understand and know of, I believe that we should be aware of what kind of information is being sent off to such firms. As we rely more and more on new media for our day to day activities, it is important to stay ahead of the game by continually upping the growth of security that can safeguard the public’s right to privacy and confidentiality, in the long run, I think this can create a more trusting connection between all parties involved.