The aggregation of personal data from multiple sources can result in significant privacy harms for individuals. When data from various sources is combined, it creates a comprehensive and detailed profile of an individual, often without their knowledge or consent. This can lead to invasive profiling, targeted advertising, and potential discrimination. For example, a company may aggregate an individual’s online shopping history, social media activity, and location data to create a detailed profile of their habits, preferences, and behaviors. This information can then be used to target the individual with personalized ads, manipulate their decision-making, or even make decisions about their eligibility for certain services or opportunities without their awareness. Additionally, the aggregation of personal data increases the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access, as a single breach could expose a wealth of sensitive information about an individual.
To illustrate, imagine your life as a puzzle, with each piece representing a different aspect of your personal data. When companies aggregate data from multiple sources, it’s as if someone is putting together this puzzle without your permission, revealing a complete picture of who you are and what you do. This comprehensive view of your life can then be used to influence your decisions, target you with specific advertisements, and even make assumptions about you without your consent. Just as you wouldn’t want someone piecing together your entire life without your permission, the aggregation of personal data from multiple sources can similarly infringe on your privacy and autonomy.
Please note that the provided answer is a brief overview; for a comprehensive exploration of privacy, privacy-enhancing technologies, and privacy engineering, as well as the innovative contributions from our students at Carnegie Mellon’s Privacy Engineering program, we highly encourage you to delve into our in-depth articles available through our homepage at https://privacy-engineering-cmu.github.io/.
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