Private Information

• Its hard to keep information private on the internet
• Many websites (e.g. social media, banking and retail) require users to provide personal information in order to set up an account (e.g. DOB and address)
• Social media websites encourage you to post personal information (e.g. photographs and details of your job and social life)
• Cloud computing websites allow users to upload personal files to their servers
• Companies may make your personal information available to other website users or organisations
• Companies may sell your personal details , buying habits, "likes/dislikes" etc. to other organisations - who might use it to send you targeted adverts or spam emails
• Companies can do lots with your information as long as they stay within the bounds of the privacy agreement
• Users will accept a privacy agreement before using many websites and software
• Few people actually read the privacy agreement when trying to use a website so are unaware of what they are agreeing to -Even if they do, they, they often have no choice but to agree if they want to use the website or software at all
• To make the information they share more private , users can cake steps such as changing their privacy settings on social media sites
• Websites often have fairly relaxed privacy settings by default - they can also have privacy settings that are hard to find or understand
• Users have to trust companies to keep their data secure
• Companies don't always keep user's data secure - there have been various high profile cases where customer data held by large companies has been leaked or stolen
• There are issues around having so much personal information accessed via mobile devices , which might be stolen