Argumentative essay on Online Privacy Rights and Government Interventions

The government should play a leading part in protection of online privacy rights since it guarantee respect for persons, uphold social boundaries, protect against cyber bullying, and preserves national security (Young & Quan-Haase, 2013). Main Point 1: the protection of online privacy by the government is essential because it promotes respect for persons’ rights. It is respectful to safeguard the wishes of an individual who is determined to maintain his/her privacy when using the Internet (Malandrino, Scarano & Spinelli, 2013). However, protection of data may lead to loss of important information such as genetic material, financial transactions, criminal justice proceedings, healthcare records, privacy breaches, geographic and residence records. The need for privacy can create a conflict with essential values, hence revealing the privacy of a person can violate the individual’s rights. In this respect, the personal life is cherished (Young & Quan-Haase, 2013). In so doing, the government should protect internet privacy because it is not only obligatory, but also pertinent (Park, Campbell, & Kwak, 2012). Additionally, it is the responsibility of the government to initiate policies and awareness on the need for privacy (Malandrino, Scarano & Spinelli, 2013). Main Point 2: Government interventions to enhance online privacy are vital in the current generation because it prevents cybercriminals from engaging in the personal data. Such individuals violate the privacy of the individuals since they take advantage from it (Malandrino, Scarano & Spinelli, 2013). Nevertheless, some of these data include credit card numbers, IP addresses, email addresses and phone numbers may be accessed by the government (Park, Campbell, & Kwak, 2012) Currently, the country faces an increased risk of hacked data, which are later traded online. The government should also protect online privacy to avoid cyber fraud and data breaches. Significantly, such cases are growing fast in the country. Main Point 3: Another reason why the government interventions on protection of online privacy are pertinent is that it upholds the social boundaries (Young & Quan-Haase, 2013). Online safety has an impact on each user who interacts over the internet (Park, Campbell, & Kwak, 2012). Nonetheless, in some cases this personal data may be acquired by the government and later distributed to unauthorized persons leading to violation of rights The disclosures of this data increase the vulnerability of the individuals to a wide range of abuses such as revelation of financial records, court records, psychological tests, and medical records (Young & Quan-Haase, 2013). Privacy invasion encompasses the use of personal information that allows intrusion of individual’s life (Malandrino, Scarano & Spinelli, 2013). Consequently, that data is availed to other persons without consent of the subject. Main Point 4: Significantly, the government should initiate various mechanisms to handle online privacy in order to prevent cases of cyber bullying. The use of social networking sites in the country has led to increased level of cyber bullying. Therefore, the government interventions should be geared towards prevention of interruption of privacy (Park, Campbell, & Kwak, 2012). However, cases of violation of online privacy would increase tremendously which would raise the instance of misery and pain. The use of social media networks exposes most people especially teenagers to cyber bullying (Malandrino, Scarano & Spinelli, 2013). Adolescents and young adults who suffer from cyber bulling are involved in suicide and a series of anti-social behaviours. In this regard, the government has an obligation in protection of its citizens. Therefore, it should monitor cases of cyber bullying on popular social networks. Subsequently, it would facilitate combating harassment over the internet (Park, Campbell, & Kwak, 2012). Main Point 5: The protection of online privacy is crucial because it assures private freedoms and rights such as freedom of speech, thought, political and social activities. The online privacy rights are fundamental to the independence of thought. Violations of such rights may limit the person’s ability to initiate new ideas. Similarly, privacy empowers a person to express unpopular information. In this regard, it safeguards the fringe actions. It also enables people to criticize the persons in authority as well as explore better ideas (Young & Quan-Haase, 2013). However, the government cannot guarantee the freedom of speech through such actions. Protection of privacy rights by the government secures freedom of political and social activities. Therefore, it helps the people to participate in political activities. A basic element of political association is the capacity to do so with privacy. The government must come up with initiatives to safeguard the online privacy since it helps the people to share their political beliefs. Disclosure of this privacy can unduly influence and disrupt these actions (Park, Campbell, & Kwak, 2012). Main Point 6: initiatives introduced by the government to protect the online privacy rights often invade the privacy. The government agencies normally monitor the activities in the internet (Young & Quan-Haase, 2013). The collection of data on social media is used to track persons engaged in criminal activities. In so doing they violate the privacy since they can observe the manner in which persons of interest interact with each other. Subsequently, they launch investigations for their friends. Therefore, although government interventions to defend the rights to online privacy, they gather data which intrudes on the privacy rights. Data requested from the users of social networking sites may be used for unintended purposes by the security agencies such as tracking criminals. Operations initiated to enhance national security can be used by the government to violate the privacy rights of the individuals (Malandrino, Scarano & Spinelli, 2013). Similarly, government’s initiatives such as public surveillance on the internet should not be condoned because it encourages abuse of privacy. VIII: Conclusion Government interventions to protect online privacy because it controls cyber bullying and respect individuals The interventions meant for national security also violate private rights by disclosing private data to the intelligence services. References Malandrino, D., Scarano, V., & Spinelli, R. (2013, September). How increased awareness can impact attitudes and behaviors toward online privacy protection. In Social Computing (SocialCom), 2013 International Conference on (pp. 57-62). IEEE. Park, Y. J., Campbell, S. W., & Kwak, N. (2012). Affect, cognition and reward: Predictors of privacy protection online. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(3), 1019-1027. Young, A. L., & Quan-Haase, A. (2013). Privacy protection strategies on Facebook: The Internet privacy paradox revisited. Information, Communication & Society, 16(4), 479-500.