The Right to be Personal – Not Private

When we use the Private Window option on our phones, it says, “Safari won’t remember the pages you visited, your search history, or your AutoFill information after you close a tab in Private Browsing Mode.” There is good and bad that comes from this.

I’m sure we’ve all used Private Mode at least once when we were searching something up that we didn’t want to get caught looking at if someone were to look at our history. It’s privacy – something our society lacks in modern times.

Though is anything private, really? Even with a Private Window? John Oliver was covering the new English law at the time called, Right to be Forgotten, which stated that if someone asked to erase themselves from a search engine, the law will have to let them.

Then, news came out about a man involved with child pornography who wanted to erase himself from the search engine. People were surprised by this action, as if they suspected criminals would not take advantage of the new law.

It just seems like a lose-lose situation. If you don’t let him erase himself from the search engine, that is unfair and took his rights away. He may me into child pornography, however, he is arguably still a person. If they do let him, we are helping him and so many more people commit crimes.

But even with Private Browsing, how do we for sure know that what we are doing is actually private? Our phones are always listening – there is no confusion about that. Who’s to say that your search history is not deep in some information storage place?

We don’t know that. When we send snaps on Snapchat and someone opens it, it is supposedly gone forever. But is it really? Someone has to be keeping tabs on the type of content there is on the app. There is no privacy. If we get the apps or search through the internet, that is on us. We choose to take place in taking no part in a private life, but only having a “personal” life.