Online Security Forum (Photo : Reuters)
A recent study of the Pew Research Center reports that people are getting too anxious about their online privacy these days. As the world sinks deeper into social media and persistent online identity, the margin between privacy and public information gets thinner by the second.
The survey organized by the Pew Research Center shows that 1,381 of the 2,511 or about 55% of the respondents do not believe that an acceptable privacy policy can exist or be implemented in the next 10 years. The survey illustrates a mere approximation of how people perceive their online security in the years to come. Regardless of what the survey projects, experts still agree that online life is getting synonymous with public life.
Pew's study have exposed common similarity among the respondents answers; experts agree that resilient security along with privacy are the fundamental groundwork for a safe and efficient digital world. It is also agreed that people sharing too much personal information does not help much in creating a safer virtual world.
The recent hack of selected celebrities private emails and top international companies data has instigated the drive to create a global initiative in order to regulate the sharing of information along the internet.
Results of the Pew survey recommended that in order for this idea to materialize, both private institutions and the government should create a safe, credible and popularly accepted infrastructure that would allow business motivation and monetization while at the same time providing the people with accessible options in protecting their personal information.
The recent Sony attack which saw a total of 250GB of leaked company data has propelled online privacy as one of the prominent concern today. When asked what he can say about the whole notion of online privacy, Sage Bionetworks chief commons officer John Wilbanks said, "We are living in an unprecedented age of surveillance."
