Lose your privacy by using the Internet

July 30, 2009 Computer Safety Tip

Author and computer security expert, Bruce Schneider, wrote a good reality-check essay on the subject of online 1-1216221768utps privacy, or the lack thereof.

He points out how using Webmail or an online document service like Google Docs not only allows for more easily obtaining your information, but also lowers the legal privacy protections. He points out that “the courts have ruled that the police can search your data without a warrant, as longs as others hold that data. If the police want to read the e-mail on your computer, they need a warrant; but they don’t need one to read it from the backup tapes at your ISP”.

It’s time for our legal system to develop a technology-aware approach towards privacy that does not use different standard for our personal information when it’s on home computer, as opposed to when it’s on a Google server.