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DNA, Data Privacy, and You
Your DNA will soon be on file, if it’s not already. What will the consequences be?
In 2011, historian Yuval Noah Harari predicted that algorithms will at some point “know us better than we know ourselves.” On many digital platforms, this is already happening.
When you scroll through YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook, you don’t have to worry about what you want to watch next. Heck, you don’t even know what you want to watch next. The algorithm does the choosing for you — and it does a pretty good job because it’s come to know you through likes, comments, and watch time.
But outsourcing your subconscious preferences isn’t free. You pay by allowing your eyes to remain glued to your devices for hours on end. The more ads you consume, the more profits you generate for your favorite platforms.
The problem is, those platforms care little about side effects like disinformation, political outrage, psychological harm, and terrorism. Frankly, even we, the users, don’t seem worried about our personal data being used against our best interests.
In fact, we consider online platforms convenient enough to be worth a slice of our privacy. We hope to keep that slice tiny, but deep down we know those data-driven companies will always be hungry for more. As a matter…
