I was
recently working on my LinkedIn account and as usual, LinkedIn was pushing me
to reconnect with people as it always does. Now this usually doesn’t bother me
but this time I noticed something that felt very intrusive and begs the
question. Are we giving too much access to 1st, 2nd and 3rd
parties; our personal and professional information?
My uncle,
in fact, my favorite uncle, died maybe 10 years ago after being diagnosed with
a brain tumor at a very late stage. I never saw him sick or saw him in his
final years to be honest and so I never really got closure. My family members
have a habit of not seeing each other for years and sometimes decades and so it
had never really hit home that I’d lost my uncle. It just feels like we are
taking one of our prolonged, live your own life, breaks until we see again.
While browsing through the LinkedIn suggestions of who to connect with, I saw
my uncle’s name in full and his e-mail address. I was shocked for a split
second and then realized that they copied it off my Yahoo! account. And then it
occurred to me, I’ve never signed in or given LinkedIn access to my Yahoo!
account. How then did they get all this information from it and violate my
memory of my late uncle by asking me to add him?
I am sure,
they and their conglomerate of lawyers will have a logical explanation and
maybe even evidence saying I granted them access and permission to violate my
compartmental memories but are we really giving you permission if we don’t know
what we are permitting you to do?
In a generation where everything is becoming
more and more connected and remotely accessible, with the biggest threats
coming from cyber hackers rather than brute old fashioned tangible technology,
are we unknowingly selling our souls to those that can harm us and harm us
legally? People say they worry about the hackers. While I worry about the
hackers as well, I must say I worry more about the corporate world who will use
my fears, loves, tragedies, hopes and much more that they gain access to, to
plunder me and my loved ones and unlike the hackers, they do it without the
threat of reprimand or repercussion because apparently, I gave them permission.
