2. Privacy
Privacy is personal, private and confidential
information about us. Personal information
could be our financial, medical, relationship
status, activities, opinions or any information
relating to us. We give our privacy easily on
the internet especially on social networks.
E.g. In real life, if a stranger asks for our
phone number, most of will refuse to give it
to them. However, on Facebook contact
details such as email address, phone
numbers, etc are given easily.
3.
4. Moreover, other personal data i.e. date of
birth, who our parents/sibling are, where we
study, where we work, relationship status are
also most common information we provide
giving our privacy less importance.
Things which are private should be kept that
way; the whole world doesn‟t need to know
sensitive information about us. If we
accommodate too many facts about us online
this can help criminals commit cyber crimes
such identity fraud, identity theft or other
illegal acts.
5. Hacking
A hacker is someone who has
knowledge, skills and understands
weakness of security system. Hacking
refers to gaining unauthorized access to
system or breaking into computer
system. Hacking can be used for various
reasons good and bad. The most
common reason for hacking is to access
valuable data without a person‟s
permission.
6.
7. e.g.Christopher Weatherhead was a student of
Northampton University who hacked into PayPal
account along with other anonymous hacking group.
Due to this hacking, PayPal lost £3.5m. Offences as
such against the law happen frequently, there are
many examples of hacking.
“A hacker stole £35,000 from his neighbours'
online bank accounts after working out the
answers to their security questions from
information they posted on Facebook and
Friends Reunited2”, this example shows how
careful we need to be online.
8. Identity Fraud/Theft
Moreover, identify theft or fraud is another
concern we need to consider. Just like how we
can create false account on websites, others can
do the same. They can take our personal
information from various websites. And create
a profile they can use but with our data. They
can use websites existing under our name
without our knowledge which is called identity
theft. They would want to hide their true
identity for their own safety, security and legal
reasons when performing something illegal or
unethical.
9.
10. They can use it do malicious acts such as
cyber bullying, harassing, hacking other
people accounts, etc. Credit card fraud refers
to thieves using your credit card information
to purchase whatever they desire. They have
an access to your bank details by
hacking, creating false merchant
sites, tracking you while you do online
shopping, Triangulation (a merchant asks
customer to pay for their purchase by email
sending their card details, who then uses
consumer‟s card to buy the product for
consumer and then use the card for their own
personal gain), etc.
11. Privacy Invasion
Another disadvantage of involvement in
Digital Identity is tracking, nowadays websites can
track, monitor and store information about us i.e.
our online behaviour; websites we visit(browsing
habits), our online shopping history, activities. Not
only, it is morally wrong to track us without our
permission and invading our privacy but also
illegal to use cookies without our consent.
However, many of us are not familiar with cookies
as they are difficult to notice, hard to control and
not aware of the impacts being monitored. Email
mass marketing, targeted adverting, etc can be
achieved from this.
12.
13. Privacy Policy
Also, many website have privacy policy
which we “just agree” without actually
reading it, most of the website mentions
they might sell our data to third parties.
They can also get our email address form
our social network profiles, if we have
provided one and our profile is public.
14.
15. Cyber bullying
While anonymity has its advantages, it also has
disadvantages, as people can use internet with fake
identity, it also increases cyber crimes such as
cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is when someone is
being harassed, threatened, insulted, humiliated
and discriminated online such as on
facebook, discussions forums, emails, gaming
sites, chats, instant messaging or any websites on
the internet. Cyber bullying can have impact in an
individual‟s life i.e. depression, lack of
confidence, anxiety, etc. As bullies can disguise
themselves by suppressing their own identity its
easier for them to commit crimes.
16.
17. Let‟s look at an example; Taylor and McKenzie
were arrested for cyber bullying (aggravated
stalking of a minor under 16.) their friend by
creating a fake profile in Facebook (under their
friend‟s name). They also uploaded indecent
pictures of her, wrote very offensive comments
and added 189 people as friends from their
school. When detectives “alerted the alleged
victim, she was not even aware the fake profile
existed but she later told teachers she had been
subjected to „numerous incidents of teasing and
ridicule because of it”.
18. Control of information
One of the disadvantages of having Digital
Identity is how we do not have control over our
own information. E.g. once someone has
uploaded a picture on Facebook, others can copy
the image and „do anything with it‟. Also, what
other say, write or post about us is uncontrollable.
Therefore we need to manage our Digital Identity
properly to avoid any inaccurate, irrelevant and
reputation damaging information being
represented on the web about us.
