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Smart Citizens

Blog posts for the smart citizens class at Tec de Monterrey

Computational Inference

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All social media applications should be clear about how they use their user’s information, it is known that they use the information they collect from it’s users to ‘infer’ information about them. It can infer whom you know, where you live, your mood, your sexual preference and more. This is so frightening, because people is not aware of what information about them is out there. We cannot be sure that companies will handle our personal information with care, even if it’s inferred.

This is a random and unrelated image of Donald Trump

The recent privacy laws approved are a step forward to data privacy and usage transparency, but ultimately, the problem is still there, you cannot see who is using your data, I believe that the solution should be that each user is correctly notified that the information that companies recollect about them is not only that which they willingly submit to their platforms. Also, users should be able to see the information that these companies have inferred about them, since that can be quite impressive, like, deceases, depression, addictions, etc. And of course, you should be able to request the deletion of your personal information or at least, the deletion of misleading in information.

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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/opinion/computational-inference.html

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