The first security concern is the easiest to remedy. This Grandma has always suggested that the parents of the grandchildren create wish lists on Amazon so that Grandma can buy holiday, birthday, and visit presents that the grandchildren actually want. Yes, it is fun to experiment on our own, especially with Oppenheimer Toy Award winners on Toy Portfolio but it also gives the parents of the grandchildren an activity of going shopping with grandma’s money. It is also a fun activity to add to wish lists when we are with the grandchildren and are not ready to buy them something immediately.
On the Today Show, on February 19, 2016, there was a segment about the security dangers of the Amazon wish lists! It seems that the setting for them is “public,” which means that anyone can type in a name and get into your wish list. According to the segment, not only does it allow anyone to target advertising to you, which is so annoying, it can be dangerous, and is an avenue to get into your account and even change your password without your permission.
This Grandma went on to the grandchildren’s wish list immediately and discovered that it was listed as public. It was easy to go into settings and change the setting to private. It will take you less than three minutes to correct this security concern.
The second concern was a blurb on this Grandma’s favorite quick news source, on line daily e-newsletter, the Skimm. If you are a women in her thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond, this is just a fun way to receive news. Sign up here but this blurb was not funny:
“Pregnant? That’s what your employer wants to know. This week, the WSJ put a spotlight on how companies are hiring outside firms to figure out things like which employees are pregnant, or thinking about it. Yup. At least one of these firms does this by collecting info on a woman’s age, her search history, whether she’s stopped filling her birth control prescriptions, etc. Resist urge to throw phone out window. These outside firms say companies “generally” aren’t allowed to know who’s who. All of this is in part to give employers an idea of how much they can expect to spend on healthcare. Just don’t be shocked if you get an unsolicited email about prenatal vitamins.”
This Grandma found a well written article from New York Magazine, nymagazine.com, “Your Job Can Now Predict When You’ll Have a Kid,” by Laura June, who wrote about the report in the Wall Street Journal about how technology and “big data,” should raise privacy concerns. She said the article “ details employers’ attempts to cut health-care costs by using the aforementioned “big data” to predict which employees might soon come down with serious (read: expensive) conditions. Think cancer, diabetes, back problems.”
“This is alarming, of course! Your employer, even when it subsidizes part of your insurance, is not legally entitled to detailed information about your health – that’s private, protected information between you, your doctors, and your health-insurance company. But recently, companies looking to cut costs have been hiring third parties to contract the work of mining all this data for them. . . . To determine which employees might soon get pregnant, Castlight recently launched a new product that scans insurance claims to find women who have stopped filling birth-control prescriptions, as well as women who have made fertility-related searches on Castlight’s health app.”
“That data is matched with the woman’s age, and if applicable, the ages of her children to compute the likelihood of an impending pregnancy, says Jonathan Rende, Castlight’s chief research and development officer. She would then start receiving emails or in-app messages with tips for choosing an obstetrician or other prenatal care. If the algorithm guessed wrong, she could opt out of receiving similar messages.”
This huge security concern is not as easy to correct as Amazon’s. It requires us to actually think in advance that our medical health and research may link to an employer interest. The Castlight health app is readily available and even has 3.6 out of 5 rating.
Now, this is very concerning, as is concerning the number of similar apps that you can see on the page with the description of Castlight:
So, now we have to pay attention to what apps are provided as a benefit of employment and if we have researched something, whether we start getting ads, emails, or in-app messages regarding the research. This is not an easy security and privacy fix, unless enough employees get up in arms.
There is another simple security fix to do, once, and then often thereafter on your home computer. In the upper right hand corner, you can click on settings and go to “History,” which is the history of your roaming on the internet. When you click on “History” you can clear browsing data and purge “cookies” put in your browsing of websites who then tag your browsing. Select “from the beginning of time” if you have never done this before, and keep doing it periodically.
The Wall Street Journal Article, “Bosses Tap Outside Firms to Predict Which Workers Might Get Sick, By Rachel Emma Silverman, dated February 17, 2016, begins with, “Employee wellness firms and insurers are working with companies to mine data about the prescription drugs workers use, how they shop and even whether they vote, to predict their individual health needs and recommend treatments.” Really! Or to watch us, invading whatever privacy we have left, if any.
This Grandma will not activate location services on her electronics. If you want your privacy, research, opt out when you can of everything, and watch your own back.
With little Joy,
Mema
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