There's outrage about the NSA's 'spying' on citizens, but many of us are willing to share our personal lives and locations daily
I recently trailed a friend – inadvertently – through New York City, during a Facebook chat.
Each message he sent via the mobile app, Facebook Messenger, came with a pushpin corresponding to his precise location, allowing me to trace his journey on a Bing map. Social media sites are notorious for privacy invasion, but I found this instance especially unsettling because – if I could zero in on my friend's whereabouts, he could likely pinpoint mine.
It's ironic that, at a time when many of us are outraged over the US government's "spying", quite a few of us are either willingly or unwittingly giving up some of our own civil liberties.
Although there's an important distinction to be made between information we voluntarily sign away and private data that's seemingly subject to unwarranted searches and collection, many of us are inconsistent in our release of personal data. We're quick to hand over our privacy rights to corporations, but we get touchy when the government tampers with our information – even when we might be the ones allowing it.
Most of us pay little attention to what information we give away or who we give it to. It's what filmmaker Cullen Hoback explores in his documentary Terms and Conditions May Apply, which is making its theatrical debut this weekend. Hoback investigates how our private data, which we "agree" to share, is then used by governments and corporations.
On one level, many of us broadcast our own photos and videos, reveal our relationship statuses, religions and political preferences, and post our job histories. These kinds of personal details are widely shared – and released under our control. However, there's another level of sharing when we become active participants, engaging with social media sites that encourage us to "check in" at various hotspots or connect with other users via our location. We give the power to watch and manage our information to someone else, and prove we're OK with that.
We obsessively check Facebook and Twitter, share photos on Instagram and Snapchat, and message via Google+ Hangouts and Path. It has become a normal – and somewhat preferred – form of communication among Gen-Yers. But far too many social media apps now go a step further and help others pinpoint where we are – on a map, with a time stamp. For some, it's an accepted, though annoying, form of privacy invasion since social media scratches an itch we have to keep tabs on our friends. But for others, it's all a game.
Foursquare is a location-based app that encourages users check in at restaurants, bars, even public transportation systems, and compete with others to earn "badges" by visiting the most spots. But these social media toys are not playful at all; they're just really creepy.
After much protest last year, Instagram revamped its privacy policy that had given the company's chief executive the right to share users' personal information with Facebook, which could then sell the users' data to advertisers without permission or compensation.
Although we're occasionally reminded that social networks virtually own us, we too soon forget. Now, some social media users are downloading these trendy social discovery apps, which, by design, are the dodgiest within the cyber community – because many of them connect users to other people and events based, at least partly, on their physical locations.
Apps such as Imo.im, Highlight and Banjo mix social media with high-tech stalking. Imo.im is a chat tool that connects users based on locations and interests. Highlight alerts users when others are nearby, allowing access to users' names, photos, friends and coordinates. Banjo compiles publicly available posts from other social networks all over the world – whether from friends, people in a common network or just those in the general public.
The worst of these are the location-based dating apps. Blendr, Grindr and Tinder use GPS to locate potential partners. Just go ahead and provide home addresses and cellphone numbers.
Of course we're not granting social media sites permission to tap our telephones, but we're allowing them track our every move – figuratively and literally. That's arguably just as problematic, if not more so. So maybe we're not victims of stolen information after all – particularly when we're giving so much of it away.