Big Data, ignorance by saturation

Samsung's new TVs could spy on you. Well, it is a feasible option, yes, although the company has already worked hard on it deny itWhat is clear is that the hyperconnectivity to which we voluntarily submit ourselves causes us to continually release personal data. Unintentionally, unintentionally, but our patterns of behavior reveal a lot about us. Our smartphones, the Apps installed in them, they spy on us with total impunity and our approval.

We live hyperconnected, we generate millions of data per minute that reveal valuable patterns of behavior. Getting hold of them is the goal of many companies that see, as it has always been, that information is power. However, the oversaturation of information makes it increasingly difficult to manage and classify it correctly. In the era of Big Data The volume of information is not making us more intelligent or smarter, but quite the opposite. Ignorance due to saturation, due to not knowing how to separate the content, the wheat from the chaff, is an increasingly widespread phenomenon.

The newspaper The Guardian He listed six ways in which technology spies on us, as well as the corresponding ways to avoid it. Six ways to obtain reliable and relevant data that, when combined, can reveal even more than we can possibly know about what we do, where we are, how long we stay in a place, what we like or who we associate with.

The great spy of our movements, uses and customs is the phone. The vast majority of the Apps that we have installed and that we use daily reveal information about us. One of the most important is, obviously, Facebook. Because of its social nature, because we mark things we like in it and because we share our lives in it, it is the great spy. The “Like"It is a sensational confidant for companies and marketing departments eager to learn about social trends on which to apply their communication and promotion campaigns.

But it is not only with the “Likes” that we get information. Facebook also uses our browsing history to learn more about us and offer us related content on our wall.

While “likes” are the responsibility of each user, and it is up to them to stop clicking that button, to stop Facebook from snooping through our browsing history, all we have to do is close the active session.

Other technological elements of our daily lives that are capable of knowing more about us than we know about ourselves are mobile geolocation services. App Any self-respecting company claims to be able to access this service in order to offer better content or geolocalized messages. However, thanks to this, it is very easy for them to track positions and know the habits and customs of people. A test example is enough for users of iPhone: settings > privacy > location > system services > frequent locations. Clicking on any of the cities will show you where you have been.

By disabling this feature, tracking is over.

The mobile phone networks, by their very structure of operation, are also very prone to reveal personal data regarding location and behavior. The only solution against this is not to use the mobile phone, which seems much more than impossible for the 80% of the population.

The Guardian reached up to six, but there are dozens of ways to spy on us. The good thing about all of them is that the volume of information generated is enormous and interpreting it requires time and effort; something that quite a few companies have begun to invest in.

As he said anyone ever, “Sometimes it's better not to know”…