Everything you do online generates a “Digital Fingerprint” record. And there are many silent third parties lurking in the background, collecting your personal information and exchanging it with other third parties while you browse the web.
In this first installment of “Privacy and Power,” we visit leading computer science researchers to see some new and alarming ways these “third-party” companies are quietly collecting our information, even when you’ve taken measures to “block” conventional forms of web tracking.
Although you may be able to limit some data tracking on your web browser, your mobile device does not have the same tools to block third party trackers in mobile apps. Furthermore, there are very few laws in the U.S. that protect citizens from the collection of information through mobile apps. In the second installment of “Privacy and Power,” computer scientists from UC Berkeley and Stony Brook University show us how apps shuttle sensitive personal information to countless third parties.
Once data collection companies have compiled a detailed profile of who you are, they can effectively use that information to serve you targeted ads of things you’ll most likely want to buy. That same information, when in the wrong hands, can be used for covert manipulation of your choices. In the third installment of “Privacy and Power,” we look at how Russian hackers used Cambridge Analytica data to influence U.S. voters in the 2016 election, and the larger implications of what researchers have coined ‘p