My Reflections for Week Six - May Herring

May Herring

Randy Dryer

Privacy In A Digital Age

2/15/23

My Reflections for Week Six

Throughout this class, I’ve learned a lot about privacy, laws, and government surveillance. The three biggest takeaways I’ve had so far were from our units on stingrays, facial recognition, and the difference between privacy laws in the U.K. vs the U.S. I took the most away from the stingray unit because it was my blog topic, so while I was conducting research for my essay, I was able to do a deep dive into the technology, it’s usages and applications, and potential privacy violations. At first, I wasn’t really interested in the topic of stingray surveillance, but I found myself fascinated by the way they operated once I began my research. During the facial recognition unit, I was able to understand how facial recognition was being used on me in public places like restaurants and stores. I had a more practical understanding of how to protect my identity from facial recognition systems, and how organizations can sometimes store, sell, and use people’s personal facial data. When we learned about the difference between privacy laws in the U.K. and the U.S, I got a better understanding of how privacy laws could be crafted to be more protective of the individual and focus less on private businesses and corporations. Overall, I’ve really enjoyed this class so far, and feel like I’ve learned a lot. I look forward to diving deeper into similar topics in the future.