Privacy Policy: Agree to Disagree

There are countless applications available for installation and they all come with privacy policies.

Over 65% of Malaysians own a smartphone, and that is approximately 21 million of us from the 32 million total population. Smartphone users are everywhere regardless of the age. When you're out in the shopping mall, you can see children as young as a few years old playing some games on their smartphones or watching their favourite Baby Shark dance moves, while senior citizens in the market speak loudly with their phones near their mouth, to record voice notes to their friends. A smartphone without applications is like a pen without ink. One thing that is unavoidable, is how we will eventually need to download and install a collection of applications for distinct uses and functionality.

Agreeing to online privacy policies exposes us to numerous security threats. No one will spend ages to read the entire long, wordy document of privacy policies when you can just tick a box and proceed to use the product. As Malaysians, our allowing game is so strong and whatever we want, we want it fast. When we have downloaded an application or software, most of us just blindly agree and allow access as long as we can get the product working. The real question is, why do they need to access our phones and all files despite it being irrelevant to the application’s function? By allowing the access, our data, as well as all the information stored in our phone will be at a higher risk. Unfortunately, the only way to safeguard yourself from such risk is to avoid using these applications at all, which is not practical in most situations.

Be aware of the risks posed by agreeing to the policies and allowing the access to your phone.

The data breaches we witnessed in 2018 tell us that even major social networking sites with vast budget and resources are not exempted from cyberattacks. As a result, the profiles and data of millions of users are leaked. There’s a phrase that says ‘If you’re not paying for the services, then you are the product’ which is not entirely wrong because we willingly give consent and allow the social networking sites and applications to access our information, archiving our profiles in their directories. Malaysians are guilty of this, given the fact that we have massive love for using social media, combined with a lack of data privacy awareness. There are also some sites that discreetly sell your information to advertisers or other business organisations without forementioning about it.

A collection of studies highlighted that, people normally pay less attention to screens in the first place, compared to paper and ink. Reading on digital devices tire your eyes out faster, not to mention the possible eye strain that you will have to suffer, when reading on electronic gadgets for a long time. It is probably one of the biggest lies on the Internet when people say that they actually read the lengthy, small texts on online agreements and terms of service. Our lives are moving rapidly online and we should all be aware of the risks posed by data policies. When you install an application and you are prompted to allow the access to your phone, ask yourself if the risks are worth the benefits offered by the application.