CS103F: Ethical Foundations of Computer Science

For this blog post, please consider the intentional data collection prevalent in our society today. Many people are willing to trade their privacy and allow the collection of their personal data in order to access software or information for free.

Consider:

• Where is the line between an acceptable amount of data being collected and the provided convenience?
• What are the effects of this trade on the individual and on our society?
• What is the role of the tech industry in these questions?
• Who should own the data?
• What does informed consent look like?

These resources may be useful to you:

• Yanofsky, David. If you're using an Android phone, Google may be tracking every move you make, Quartz, January 24, 2018.
• Tufekci, Zeynep. Facebook's Surveillance Machine, The New York Times, March 19, 2018.
• Tufekci, Zeynep (@zeynep). Tweet Storm, Twitter, March 17, 2018.
• Hindman, Matthew. This is how Cambridge Analytica's Facebook targeting model really worked---according to the the person who built it., Neiman Lab, March 30, 2018.
• How you're tracked online---and what you can do about it. CBS News, March 31, 2018.
• Constaine, Josh. Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them, Tech Crunch, Janauadry, 29, 2019.
• Schechner, Sam and Mark Secada. You Give Apps Sensitive Personal Information, Then They Tell Facebook, The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2019.

Please construct your response so that it has a main idea, supporting arguments, and a conclusion. Your response should be approximately 300 words and you are welcome to link to relevant media (articles, videos, etc.).

We do expect professional presentation: your spelling and grammar should be correct---you should not be using text shorthand or emojis.

Once you have created your blog post, submit a URL to the relevant assignment on Canvas. When you submit your URL, Canvas will take a snapshot of that URL, so be sure to submit once you are finished with your blog post.

Finally, the Ethics Centre has blog posts that may be useful as examples--they are often longer than your requirement, though. One of the recent good examples is "Why Victims Remain Silent... and Then Find Their Voice".