Edward Snowden, a former NSA spy, is widely known for speaking on the state of privacy in the United States. Firstly, Snowden is incredibly honorable in speaking out against the secrecy of privacy information that the country has been hiding against its citizens. He is an intelligent and experienced individual given his work history which immediately provides the comfort of knowing that what he is sharing is accurate information.
Snowden went on to discuss the integration of technology during the Covid-19 pandemic. A feature that numerous companies are using tracks your location history to notify you of exposure. I have gotten a notification from this feature on my cell phone. It has made me wonder how often am I being tracked and where is this data going? Snowden didn’t help lessen my worries as he mentioned we are all being tracked every second of the day through many outlets such as cell phone towers, wireless networks, and wi-fi providers. Although this information is said to ultimately benefit us all, the use of exposure notifications is useless considering the amount of cell phone users in this country alone. Transparency raises the concern of what information is private and who all has access to it. It also raises more concern about the basic privacy laws in America and how we can move towards a goal where such personal information is kept private.
