Difference between revisions of "Gordon Chan"

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== <big>'''Am I Who (They Say) I Am?'''</big> ==
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== <big>'''My Data Identity'''</big> ==
  
Before being prompted to search myself online I had never thought much about the uniqueness of my name. In fact, ever since I left my hometown for college it feels like everywhere I go there is someone else around my age with the same first name. When faced with googling myself, however, I was lucky enough, or perhaps unlucky depending on how you see it, to find that the combination of the spelling of my first and last [[File:'Gordon Hinam Chan'.png|400px|thumb|right|]] name provides me with narrow results all specific to my real life. When realizing this I was at first pleasantly surprised because that meant I did not have to work as hard to find results actually about me. In addition, this meant that the odds of being falsely identified or confused for someone else might be lower. On further thought, however, I became slightly more nervous, wishing for there to be hundreds of other Bailee Stirns out there to be confused with me so that no one would be able to tell what data is mine. My brainstorming immediately hoped for a means for obfuscation when it came to online profiles, something entailing making various fake facts associated with my name so as to hide the truth, but I realized that this would not necessarily address the root of the privacy and ethical concerns here.
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Growing up, I always knew my name was unique. Be it my parents’ choice to have my first name be a combination of both my English and Cantonese names, or an error with the school’s system that meant my first name showed up backwards as ‘Hinam Gordon’ on the register, which resulted in an annual tradition spanning over a decade of having to listen to each of my new teachers awkwardly attempt to pronounce 'Hinam', my name has always been something that I have been conscious about. Though it never really bothered me when a new teacher would call me by my Chinese name at first; in fact, my classmates and I thought it was quite amusing every year; something else that I have always been particularly conscious about is my online data identity.
  
Ultimately, I found that my online data builds on the idea David Shoemaker discusses in ''Self-exposure and exposure of the self'' where individual results suggest patterns both significant and irrelevant to my self-identity. According to Shoemaker "the information that’s publicly available tends to be information that isn’t part of one’s self identity, whereas the patterning produced by data mining often is” (10). Finding particular facts about me in a very public space was generally not as concerning as the patterns they might suggest. Additionally, although many aspects of my self-identity, both patterns and some individual results, are being presented accurately, they have stolen my chance to present them in my own way, suggesting a serious lack of informational privacy.  
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The concept of a ‘digital footprint’ was introduced to me at quite a young age and is something that has always stayed in the back of my mind. Whether it was the seminars at school teaching us about our Facebook privacy settings, or the constant lectures I would get from my parents about the dangers of the Internet and how you would get your credit card information stolen if you weren’t careful and typed it on a dodgy website, I was always especially careful when it came to maintaining the privacy of my online identity or ‘profile’. Though I am too lazy to use a browser like Tor, I use a Chrome extension that works similarly to a VPN, and I have also installed various anti-malware and security software on all my devices. As such, I was not too surprised by the lack of information I found online, as I tend to keep most of my things on the highest privacy and security settings. However, seeing this seemingly inverse relationship between privacy and identity has also made me rethink my approach to privacy.
  
 
=== <big>'''Google'''</big> ===
 
=== <big>'''Google'''</big> ===
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[[File:'Gordon Hinam Chan'.png|300px|thumb|left|]]
  
 
==== 'Gordon Chan' vs 'Gordon Hinam Chan' ====
 
==== 'Gordon Chan' vs 'Gordon Hinam Chan' ====
  
The very first thing I did was to do a basic Google search of my name, ‘Gordon Chan’. But, upon finding search results for a Hong Kong film director born in 1960, I figured that that probably wasn’t me, so I refined my search to ‘Gordon Hinam Chan’, my full birth name. I was able to find three results that were actually relevant to me, although two of them were essentially the same. The very first result was a search result for people in ‘MCommunity’, where I was able to find my affiliation to the school, including my degree, major and minor, as well as my uniqname and e-mail (all of which were correct and up to date). The last two search results were both for financial and legal information regarding a small family-owned company in France that is registered to the names of my family members, which would explain the match to my full name as well as the French websites that I had to Google Translate to comprehend. Interestingly, when I googled “Gordon Hinam Chan”, I only got 1 result, which was for my MCommunity page, and apart from that I was not able to find much more from Google about me. Overall, everything I had found so far was accurate, and I was not too surprised that what I had found would be publicly available.
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The very first thing I did was to do a basic Google search of my name, ‘Gordon Chan’. But, upon finding search results for a Hong Kong film director born in 1960, I figured that that probably wasn’t me, so I refined my search to ‘Gordon Hinam Chan’, my full birth name. I was able to find three results that were actually relevant to me, although two of them were essentially the same. The very first result was a search result for people in ‘MCommunity’, where I was able to find my affiliation to the school, including my degree, major and minor, as well as my uniqname and e-mail (all of which were correct and up to date). The last two search results were both for financial and legal information regarding a small family-owned company in France that is registered to the names of my family members, which would explain the match to my full name as well as the French websites that I had to Google Translate to comprehend. Interestingly, when I Googled “Gordon Hinam Chan”, I only got 1 result, which was for my MCommunity page, and apart from that, I was not able to find much more about me from a simple search of my name.
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I noticed that there were not any images of me, however, and all the images were of other Gordon Chan’s. This did not surprise me too much though, as I am quite selective with the images that I upload and post, and most of my social media is private too. Overall, everything I had found so far was accurate, and I was not too surprised that what I had actually found would be publicly available. I wanted to dig a little deeper though, and I wanted to see what information I would be able to gather of myself from social media.
  
 
=== <big>'''Social Media'''</big> ===
 
=== <big>'''Social Media'''</big> ===
  
Another level added to the formation of online identities is data brokers holding all kinds of information on individuals, usually found behind a paywall. When using Instant Checkmate, one such data broker, to search my name, facts such as my exact birth date, all members of my immediate family, my pinterest account, my address, my neighbors and some of their personal data, sex offenders in the area, and possible associates (whatever that means) were available. Everything that Instant Checkmate's report on me included was correct, except the category of possible associates, which subsequently gave me the most concern in my uncertainty. It said that a possible associate of mine was a person with a name I do not recognize and under his list of previous addresses, was that of my family's home. I know this is untrue because my family built our home on property that was family owned, giving it a brand new address. It makes sense that these reports would often have mistakes such as this, however, I am still labeled as an associate of this person unknown to me for anyone who chooses to see.
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==== Facebook/Instagram vs LinkedIn ====
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I made a fresh Facebook and Instagram account so that I could find myself, but I was unable to find myself on either platform without searching specifically for my username. I was quite satisfied with this though, as I purposely keep my social media on tight privacy settings. As both my profiles were private, I was unable to glean any personal data or even any photos. In contrast, after I made my fake LinkedIn profile I was able to instantly find myself with a simple search, and on my LinkedIn profile, I was able to find the most detailed information about myself yet, including my current location and most recent employment. This, however, was all information that I had specifically prepared to be visible on my public professional profile.
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I was quite pleased to see that I have managed to create a distinction between my 'personal' and 'public' profile. Though I would preferably keep my entire online data profile private, in an increasingly technological-driven and data-centric world, being able to keep certain profiles of mine private whilst simultaneously being able to (somewhat) control the information that is shared on my public profiles is a compromise I am willing to accept. [[File:Gordon Instant Checkmate.png|500px|thumb|right|Search results for my name on Instant Checkmate]]
  
 
=== <big>'''Data Broker'''</big> ===
 
=== <big>'''Data Broker'''</big> ===
  
[[File:Gordon Instant Checkmate.png|500px|thumb|right|Search results for my name on Information Broker]]Growing up in a very small town, I made peace many years ago with the fact that my privacy in the sense of control over what was published about me, was minimal. Choosing to participate in many community-based affairs and doing well in a small high school, I knew that I had been featured in numerous local newspaper articles and was therefore not surprised to find any of these results in the first three categories. Of course, that does not mean that I am not embarrassed by some of it, especially pictures like the one to the right. But because I had adjusted my life to expect these things many years ago, I found myself not as distraught at first glance to find it publicly available.  
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Though I have always been aware of how user data can be collected and then bought and sold just like any other commodity, I had never been aware of data brokers until this assignment. As such, I had to try one out for myself, and since many of the data brokers I tried to use initially were locked behind a paywall, I tried to use Instant Checkmate, a free data broker. Sadly, however, I was unable to get any information on myself, though I think this may be because I only moved to the US four years ago when I first started college, and thus may not have built up a comprehensive enough history in the US yet. It still is quite interesting though that there is absolutely no information available that was even remotely related to me, despite my various attempts at changing the search filters.
  
Many of the Google results listed above would then form patterns along the lines of being involved in and caring about community or striving academically. They are showing things that I continue to contribute to my self-identity and am generally proud of, so I find myself asking- should I really get to complain? Despite the circumstances reducing most personal concern on these patterns, it is still clear that my privacy is limited. I did not ask for these individual results to be public but I might be considered lucky that these characteristics are associated with my name- what authors of ''Esteem, Identifiability, and the Internet'' might describe as esteem forming a positive reputation (Brennan and Pettit). However, looking at it through a privacy lens conveys an unfavorable picture as I essentially have no control of the pattern being made by collecting all of these things.
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=== <big>'''Conclusion'''</big> ===
  
=== <big>'''Presentation and Privacy'''</big> ===
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Overall, I thought that the information I was able to find about myself online from various sources, including Google, social media, and even a data broker, was on the whole quite accurate, authentic, and stable. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the data broker was not able to find any information on me and that the only photo I found of myself online was my LinkedIn profile picture. However, this lack of information about me online made me sit back and think about my online data identity.
  
In Dean Cocking's Plural Selves and Relational Identity, he writes that privacy depends on one's control over self-presentation. The actual presentation of both individual facts and patterns like the ones described above are mostly out of my control when it comes to the internet. I use few social media accounts and the two that I do, Twitter and Pinterest, I have rarely if ever posted on. This seems important to acknowledge because I believe that many social media platforms are a space where you have some control over presentation. Where my concern on this particular matter comes in then, is online data with the combination of three things: being publically available, attributed to my self-identity, and published and or posted by someone else. 
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==== Privacy and Identity ====
 
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==== When they get it right ====
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One such example, in which the data was accurate but the presentation was out of my control was my address. According to Shoemaker, the "domain of informational privacy, the zone to be protected, is information about one’s self-identity", and for me, this includes where I grew up (11). A further search on the town in my available address provides details such as the population is around 1,500, the median household income is less than $40,000, and the unemployment rate is around 10%. This might offer half of the picture of my background or the town, but it is not everything I would want someone to consider and it could initiate biases. In addition, sharing this information with some people might feel comfortable or necessary, but doing so with others might not be, or at least I should be able to decide which aspects to express. However, I have no control over this with the presentation of my address taken out of my hands.
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Other examples would be the results that went into the patterns I discussed above like articles on my volunteer, athletic, and academic pursuits. Not only do they contribute to possible patterns that add to my self-identity but the actual presentation is decided by someone else as well. While these may be relatively low stakes examples, the privacy implications are still there and important to acknowledge for when the case has bigger consequences.
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==== When they get it wrong ====
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As I mentioned before, the only aspect of my online data identity that I found to be incorrect was the mysterious appearance of an unknown person listed as my associate on Checkmate. Using Shoemaker's domain for informational privacy, I include my family and friends to have a role in my self-identity. The false connection to this stranger then feels like a breach of my privacy. The presentation of this incorrect information is out of my command and even though I know nothing about this person, I am still connected to his online data identity. Not only do I have to worry about what information is available on me, I also have to worry about whatever this other person has out there. Now, I realize that becoming paranoid over this might be an overreaction, however, it demonstrates that false data like this can be built into an online identity. It is not only a breach of privacy but it also could have other consequences on your life because the presentation of your data is outside of your control.
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=== <big>'''Conclusion'''</big> ===
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Writing this, it is clear that I do not fully understand everything about my online identity and why some things seem like a breach of privacy and other things do not. For example, I am not very concerned about the individual online results that although accurate, are not strong factors in my self-identity or do not contribute to larger patterns that are. This included some of the Google results and most of the databroker facts like age, neighbors, and nearby sex offenders. In addition, I was not as concerned about accurately depicted associates like family members because I welcome any sort of presentation of our connection. Unlike the other self-identity aspects, I could not think of a single reason for the presentation of my immediate family to matter, but I realize that this is not how everyone would feel.
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As someone who has always been very careful about maintaining their privacy, going online and actually seeing for myself what sort of data is readily available has raised some interesting questions. Using Shoemaker’s idea that “the domain of informational privacy, the zone to be protected, is information about one’s self-identity,” to evaluate my online data identity, I concluded that I have a level of informational privacy sufficient enough to make me feel secure and comfortable about my online presence. However, this exercise has also made me realize that the privacy settings I use, as well as the information that I choose to share publicly, has a direct effect on my online data identity. By prioritizing my privacy above all else, I have left myself with a rather 'weak' online data identity that may not be a fully accurate or thorough representation of my real identity. Although this helps me to feel secure about my online presence, is there a point at which too much privacy may instead harm my online data identity?
  
Being aware of your online data identity is an important practice in this increasingly digital world. In my case, almost every result from searching my name is accurate, but even in cases where it is not accurate, its presentation could fall back on me and my life. Thinking about informational privacy in respect to individuals having control over aspects of their self-identity and its presentation offers a serious message about the current state of internet users' privacy. I quickly realized that there is little to no control of these things in many online spaces. I am fortunate that most things in my data identity are not likely to be used to seriously harm me, but again that is not the case for all people. Further work in the area of online privacy should accordingly focus on giving back control of the presentation of the elements that users attribute to their self-identity, which are most often the patterns formulated from individual data.
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By exploring my own online data identity, as well as having the privilege of reading about the experiences of my peers, I now understand that creating and managing an online data identity is much more than just a fine balancing act between what information to share publicly and what information to keep private. Our online data identity is an incredibly powerful tool that can reveal a lot about a person, which in some cases may be helpful, but in other cases could just as easily be harmful. However, as technology continues to develop, we may soon find that our control over our online data identity start to lessen, making it all the more important that our right to informational privacy be rigorously upheld. Even now, we are already being patterned and profiled by publicly available data, the size of which will only continue to grow too. Eventually, we may even reach a point where so much of our personal lives and information has been digitized and analyzed that our online data identity may be the most comprehensive version of our identity. At that point though, it may be too late to start discussing ‘domains of informational privacy’, and thus it is of vital importance that our rights to informational privacy be clearly defined now, so that we may still have them in the future.

Latest revision as of 16:21, 8 March 2021

My Data Identity

Growing up, I always knew my name was unique. Be it my parents’ choice to have my first name be a combination of both my English and Cantonese names, or an error with the school’s system that meant my first name showed up backwards as ‘Hinam Gordon’ on the register, which resulted in an annual tradition spanning over a decade of having to listen to each of my new teachers awkwardly attempt to pronounce 'Hinam', my name has always been something that I have been conscious about. Though it never really bothered me when a new teacher would call me by my Chinese name at first; in fact, my classmates and I thought it was quite amusing every year; something else that I have always been particularly conscious about is my online data identity.

The concept of a ‘digital footprint’ was introduced to me at quite a young age and is something that has always stayed in the back of my mind. Whether it was the seminars at school teaching us about our Facebook privacy settings, or the constant lectures I would get from my parents about the dangers of the Internet and how you would get your credit card information stolen if you weren’t careful and typed it on a dodgy website, I was always especially careful when it came to maintaining the privacy of my online identity or ‘profile’. Though I am too lazy to use a browser like Tor, I use a Chrome extension that works similarly to a VPN, and I have also installed various anti-malware and security software on all my devices. As such, I was not too surprised by the lack of information I found online, as I tend to keep most of my things on the highest privacy and security settings. However, seeing this seemingly inverse relationship between privacy and identity has also made me rethink my approach to privacy.

Google

'Gordon Hinam Chan'.png

'Gordon Chan' vs 'Gordon Hinam Chan'

The very first thing I did was to do a basic Google search of my name, ‘Gordon Chan’. But, upon finding search results for a Hong Kong film director born in 1960, I figured that that probably wasn’t me, so I refined my search to ‘Gordon Hinam Chan’, my full birth name. I was able to find three results that were actually relevant to me, although two of them were essentially the same. The very first result was a search result for people in ‘MCommunity’, where I was able to find my affiliation to the school, including my degree, major and minor, as well as my uniqname and e-mail (all of which were correct and up to date). The last two search results were both for financial and legal information regarding a small family-owned company in France that is registered to the names of my family members, which would explain the match to my full name as well as the French websites that I had to Google Translate to comprehend. Interestingly, when I Googled “Gordon Hinam Chan”, I only got 1 result, which was for my MCommunity page, and apart from that, I was not able to find much more about me from a simple search of my name.

I noticed that there were not any images of me, however, and all the images were of other Gordon Chan’s. This did not surprise me too much though, as I am quite selective with the images that I upload and post, and most of my social media is private too. Overall, everything I had found so far was accurate, and I was not too surprised that what I had actually found would be publicly available. I wanted to dig a little deeper though, and I wanted to see what information I would be able to gather of myself from social media.

Social Media

Facebook/Instagram vs LinkedIn

I made a fresh Facebook and Instagram account so that I could find myself, but I was unable to find myself on either platform without searching specifically for my username. I was quite satisfied with this though, as I purposely keep my social media on tight privacy settings. As both my profiles were private, I was unable to glean any personal data or even any photos. In contrast, after I made my fake LinkedIn profile I was able to instantly find myself with a simple search, and on my LinkedIn profile, I was able to find the most detailed information about myself yet, including my current location and most recent employment. This, however, was all information that I had specifically prepared to be visible on my public professional profile.

I was quite pleased to see that I have managed to create a distinction between my 'personal' and 'public' profile. Though I would preferably keep my entire online data profile private, in an increasingly technological-driven and data-centric world, being able to keep certain profiles of mine private whilst simultaneously being able to (somewhat) control the information that is shared on my public profiles is a compromise I am willing to accept.
Search results for my name on Instant Checkmate

Data Broker

Though I have always been aware of how user data can be collected and then bought and sold just like any other commodity, I had never been aware of data brokers until this assignment. As such, I had to try one out for myself, and since many of the data brokers I tried to use initially were locked behind a paywall, I tried to use Instant Checkmate, a free data broker. Sadly, however, I was unable to get any information on myself, though I think this may be because I only moved to the US four years ago when I first started college, and thus may not have built up a comprehensive enough history in the US yet. It still is quite interesting though that there is absolutely no information available that was even remotely related to me, despite my various attempts at changing the search filters.

Conclusion

Overall, I thought that the information I was able to find about myself online from various sources, including Google, social media, and even a data broker, was on the whole quite accurate, authentic, and stable. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the data broker was not able to find any information on me and that the only photo I found of myself online was my LinkedIn profile picture. However, this lack of information about me online made me sit back and think about my online data identity.

Privacy and Identity

As someone who has always been very careful about maintaining their privacy, going online and actually seeing for myself what sort of data is readily available has raised some interesting questions. Using Shoemaker’s idea that “the domain of informational privacy, the zone to be protected, is information about one’s self-identity,” to evaluate my online data identity, I concluded that I have a level of informational privacy sufficient enough to make me feel secure and comfortable about my online presence. However, this exercise has also made me realize that the privacy settings I use, as well as the information that I choose to share publicly, has a direct effect on my online data identity. By prioritizing my privacy above all else, I have left myself with a rather 'weak' online data identity that may not be a fully accurate or thorough representation of my real identity. Although this helps me to feel secure about my online presence, is there a point at which too much privacy may instead harm my online data identity?

By exploring my own online data identity, as well as having the privilege of reading about the experiences of my peers, I now understand that creating and managing an online data identity is much more than just a fine balancing act between what information to share publicly and what information to keep private. Our online data identity is an incredibly powerful tool that can reveal a lot about a person, which in some cases may be helpful, but in other cases could just as easily be harmful. However, as technology continues to develop, we may soon find that our control over our online data identity start to lessen, making it all the more important that our right to informational privacy be rigorously upheld. Even now, we are already being patterned and profiled by publicly available data, the size of which will only continue to grow too. Eventually, we may even reach a point where so much of our personal lives and information has been digitized and analyzed that our online data identity may be the most comprehensive version of our identity. At that point though, it may be too late to start discussing ‘domains of informational privacy’, and thus it is of vital importance that our rights to informational privacy be clearly defined now, so that we may still have them in the future.