THIS IS A WATCHBIRD

You can find so much information on the internet. What time does the mall open on Sunday? What is the best cell phone plan for me? How much will it cost for new tires for my car? What is the meaning of “Kilroy was here”? What were the dates of the Spanish Civil War? When you clicked on that ad for a shoe sale, you got all kinds of valuable information. You can find almost everything on the internet. And it’s all free! Of course you have to have a computer and an internet connection.

There is another cost. The information highway is a two-way street. While you were looking up all the information, the internet was taking a look at you. Each computer search you did took away a little bit of information about you. Bit by bit, the internet was gathering quite a dossier on you. You are interested in cell phone service, and you need tires for your car. You are interested in history and might like to buy about book about the Spanish Civil War or World War II (where Kilroy first appeared). The internet has an idea of what kind of shoes you like.

Not only does the internet know about you and what you like, it wants to help you, and it knows where you live, so to speak. Your search engine will share your shoe taste information with your email and Facebook accounts. Your browser knows your passwords to these accounts because it asked you if you wanted it to save them for you. Many of us said, “Yes, go ahead and save those passwords. I don’t want to bother putting them in every time I want to sign in. Besides, no one else has access to my computer.” So when you check your email or see if anyone has said anything outrageous on Facebook, you see ads in the sidebars. Here is the perfect cell phone plan for you, and you can get an inexpensive phone along with it. Can you believe the price of these premium tires? Look at these desert boots, just the kind you like, and at rock bottom prices! Maybe you would be interested in an eBook about the Spanish Civil War.

As people get more and more connected, there are more ways in which the internet can follow our activities.  When we snap a picture with our cell phone, we create not just the picture, but a record of where and when the picture was taken. EZ pass makes it convenient to navigate through a toll booth. It also records the time we went through the booth. Smart TVs know which shows we watched. Netflix has a pretty accurate idea of what kind of movies we like to watch.

As more and more people begin to use household devices through the “Internet of Things,” they expose themselves to surveillance by authorities or hackers. The Internet of Things includes gadgets like Smart TVs, baby monitors, thermostats, and smoke alarms. These implements are connected to the internet and they have sensors for gathering audio, video, and other data.

Aren’t there laws that protect people’s privacy from such intrusions? The problem is that technology develops at such a fast pace that the laws can’t keep up. Ten years ago, who would have thought that the law needed to protect people from being spied on by their toasters?

We can help protect ourselves from hackers by putting passwords on any devices that are connected to the internet, but we better get used to the idea that there are watchbirds all around us, and they are watching us all the time.