The Blurred Line of Privacy and Ethics

I explored the Terms and Conditions of an app that I use on my phone called, Zomato. This app provides you with information on what restaurants are close to your geographical location at the moment. It also provides restaurant menus, restaurant hours, and pictures of the atmosphere as well as the dishes. This app also allows you to directly search for a particular restaurant and will display the closest one in distance. The first surprising term that I discovered was that the app is able record the call made between you and the restaurant, if you are using their link to the restaurant phone line. Although this was slightly shocking, I could definitely see how this information could be useful in improving customer service at the restaurant’s end. Another surprising term was the fact that they retain the right to change or amend the terms and conditions at any point in time. Perhaps this is common to all terms and condition forms, but I have never personally noticed that ability. This is surprising because if the company amended their terms, what you agreed to originally might not be what you would agree to now. This ability is probably beneficial because it allows the company to change certain things if they are receiving negative feedback from the allowance or exclusion of particular terms. The final term that I was surprised by was actually an eligibility term that stated the user must be at least 18 years of age. At first, this seemed like an obvious statement, most apps require a certain age for eligibility. However, it made me ponder as to why this is. Does the app gather so much information on users that it wouldn’t be morally right if this info were coming from somebody who was not a legal adult? It also made me realize another obvious fact: nobody reads nor pays attention to the terms and conditions of apps. I know a myriad of people who use Zomato who are most definitely not 18 years of age. Anybody with a license at 16 is likely to use this app since they are capable of traveling.

However, I don’t think any of these facts should be considered unethical because, as users, if we click “agree” to the terms, than the app assumes we have read said terms. If we are that concerned with the possibility of a privacy breach, then we should take it upon ourselves to read the terms and then decide if the app is really worth it.

Putting myself in the position of a hacker gives me a very interesting perspective. To imagine what it would be like, I put myself in the position of Edward Snowden. He was a former CIA employee who leaked classified information from the NSA to the public. If I was in his position, I would like to think I would have done the same thing because the information he exposed was extremely shocking. I would want to open the public’s eyes to the baffling amount of data and information the NSA has access to. Most of the nation was probably completely blind to the fact that the NSA had the privilege to throw individual privacy to the side, including their ability to conduct global surveillance, to access phone records, intercept text messages, and even crack encryptions. These are things that I would have also wished to expose to the public, however, I am not sure I would sacrifice my life and career in order to reveal that information-which is exactly what Edward did.

The Panama Papers revealed the disturbing fact that globally elite companies have been hiding millions of dollars in a network of offshore banks and firms. Offshore banks can be used for legitimate reasons; for example, citizens from unstable countries can use them to store their savings. However, this particular usage of offshore banks is not legitimate in the least. This corruption has allowed major companies to avoid taxes by hiding their wealth. The ethics of this situation walk a thin line, since the exposed information was retrieved through illegitimate means, (hacking). However, I think the exposed corruption poses a greater issue than how the info was actually obtained. Therefore, I don’t think it would be ethical to incriminate the hackers themselves, since the information they exposed is so much more damaging than the illegal means they used to get it. I find it interesting to get my mindset in line with a hacker because I like to think their ultimate goals are to reveal some hidden truth that is likely to shock humanity. In this way, they are working for a common good, a reason that is much bigger than the breach of privacy they may have committed.