Digital privacy paradox: Apple’s privacy centric measures

Abstract

Moore’s Law states that, “The number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles every 2 years as technological progress advances.” Over time this has become loosely applicable for all tech and digital developments in the world. With the penetration of smart phone, and high-speed internet, digital adoption worldwide is on a rise. Whether we like it or not it is becoming a part of our real world. The digital world has made life easier, and more convenient for us. One consequence of this development is privacy compromise. The concept of privacy has been completely revolutionized. (Reily, 2021) We pride ourselves on our privacy settings on our social media platforms and share photos on Facebook and Instagram under the assumption that only our friends have access to them. But the Cambridge Analytica data scandal proved us wrong. Personal data of Facebook users had been harnessed by this private firm to develop insights for a political campaign. In fact, they went a step further, and it is rumored that they could manipulate groups of users to vote in a certain way. In this paper, we want to answer the following questions – Is privacy truly lost? Are the corporates doing anything to protect our privacy? And at what cost does protecting our privacy coming at? As a society does this increase or decrease our behavioral surplus?