Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
The future is great. It's filled with wonderful new technologies that make our lives easier. You can turn on the TV with your voice, switch your kettle on from your smartphone, log-on to free public WiFi networks wherever you go.
However, brilliant inventions often have unintended consequences. This was demonstrated this week it came to light that a 'smart' TV with voice control functionality does not just pick up innocuous requests to change the volume or channel, but can in fact pick up everything you say. The Nineteen Eighty-Four references couldn't come fast enough.
But it's not just smart TVs posing major privacy concerns, not by a long shot. V3 has set about upping the paranoia stakes with 10 examples of technologies invading your privacy. You have been warned.
10. Wearables hoover up fitness data
Wearables are touted as the next big thing in the gadget space, and with them come all kinds of benefits, health monitoring seen as one of the biggest. Apple CEO Tim Cook certainly thinks so.
However, would you really want to share all your medical data with a technology company and the inevitable ‘third parties', those unnamed, faceless partners that siphon off data for unknown reasons?
They'll know where you went, how fast, how far, your weight, height, calorie intake, the lot. Surely this is the sort of thing only your doctor should know?
Even if the wearable firm promises that the data you send is kept secure and never shared, why are they gathering it, and what happens if they're hacked? It happens and would you feel comfortable knowing that your fitness (or lack of) data was public?
Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
9. NFC
Near Field Communication (NFC) is a useful bit of tech that can be used in a variety of ways, ranging from sending contact information between devices to making payments using a smartphone.
The technology's potential has been explored by numerous companies, including Google with its Android Beam service and Apple with its Apple Pay mobile payments service.
The dangerous part about many of these NFC-based technologies is that, like most digital services, using them puts your personal data at increased risk.
It's important to remember that you are sending information to a third party. For example, in the case of mobile payments you are sending financial information to a point of sale (POS) terminal.
This means that you are trusting the third party that runs the other side of the exchange to sensibly handle and store your data. The wave of POS data breaches hitting the headlines recently suggests that many don't.
Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
8.Smartphone apps
Most of us are familiar with the age-old adage that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Yet many are clueless as to how it applies to smartphone applications.
Despite constant warnings from the security community, most smartphone users still think that free means free when it comes to apps. Putting aside the problem of malware-laden trojan apps, this isn't true of most entirely legitimate free apps.
If you read the terms and conditions of most free apps, you'll realise that you're paying for their services with your personal information.
I mean, really, have you never wondered why a free voice recording or flashlight application is requesting permission to access your social media, email and even camera applications?
Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
7. Smart TVs listening in to your every word
Samsung was the cause of all the recent fuss over so-called 'smart' TVs invading people's privacy after a Samsung customer checked the privacy policy of a shiny new gogglebox that supports voice commands to change channels and the like.
'If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party,' the policy warned, raising the spectre of the TV in your living room listening in to private conversations.
Samsung moved to clarify that the TV transmits only samples of spoken commands back to the firm that develops the speech recognition technology, ostensibly to improve the accuracy of the system. In addition, the voice command feature can always be turned off if you feel uncomfortable about it.
However, the storm that has blown up shows just how little people are aware of the information such smart devices are reporting back to their makers.
It also highlights how such technology could easily be hijacked by hackers and turned into a real spy in the living room.
Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
6. Public WiFi
The government has been harping on about how great an interconnected Britain will be and has been working hard to ensure that people have access to the internet at all times.
Most recently the government announced plans to invest millions in bringing free WiFi networks to moving trains.
This has the potential to revolutionise the way we work, consume media and communicate, but there are some serious privacy issues around these free access points to the internet.
If you read the terms and conditions of most free public WiFi networks - which 99 percent of people don't - you'd be terrified to know what you're signing up for.
The networks make it clear that your web viewing may be monitored, but they also track and record your IP address location, making it very easy for any number of people to know where you are if you're surfing without a VPN.
Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
5. Gaming consoles
Games consoles have come a long way since the 8-bit days of yore. Now, consoles can not only play games, but stream TV, record sound and video and, in some cases, recognise our faces and movements.
It's great for those of us who regularly find themselves with time to kill, but there is a darker side to these advanced, all-in-one machines.
Growing user expectations have led console makers to use cloud computing services and store lots of data about their users.
This means that the consoles monitor everything from your gaming and entertainment viewing habits, to your interactions and communications with other players.
Of course, this hasn't been lost on criminal gangs or intelligence agencies, which have both been examining ways to take advantage of gaming consoles' potential benefits.
This development has been showcased by the cyber attacks designed to steal personal information from console vendors, and post-PRISM reports that the NSA was siphoning data from the companies behind the popular Xbox Live and PSN game networks.
Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
4. Voice assistants never forget
Siri, Cortana, Google Now. The big three mobile players are all making voice assistants a major part of their offerings, touting the idea of a ‘digital assistant' that you can ask questions as a great piece of technology.
And it is. However, remember that everything you say into your phone doesn't stay between you and the device, but is sent over the internet to a giant datacentre for translation, and then stored for several months if not years.
Apple, for example, admits to storing data from Siri requests for up to two years. IBM has banned the use of Siri by its employees given this concern, and it also poses some worrying questions for your average Joe.
Is there a list out there of all the questions I've ever asked my phone? What if it was leaked or stolen? Who would I not want to see that information?
Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
3. Connected cars record your driving
The carefree joyride may be consigned to history as wireless connectivity becomes increasingly embedded into vehicles, turning them into hubs of mobile data rather than chariots of the open road.
The inclusion of telematics systems in many vehicles means that data on the speed, location, fuel consumption and control of a car is being collected and sent across the internet to automotive manufacturers and third-party organisations.
Motorists can use this data harvesting to their advantage to get cheap insurance and fuel, improved navigation and ensure that cars are serviced when needed. But the flipside is they are effectively being constantly watched as they drive.
The data being sucked up by the internet can paint a picture of how safely or erratically a person is driving. Insurance firms can use this information to tailor rates to individual drivers.
While good drivers can reap the benefits, they are still required to surrender their motoring privacy.
Motorists with a heavy right foot or who are fond of regular visits to clandestine locations might be better opting for public transport.
Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
2. Embedded chips under the skin
The idea of having a chip implanted in the human body that acts as a sensor for unlocking doors or paying at tills seems like the stuff of science fiction.
However, an office in Sweden has started tagging people in such a way, as the BBC reported last month.
Of course this was painted as a positive development, making life easier for staff and the company by letting people enter the building and use the photocopier, for example. There are even plans to let staff pay for café items.
However, it does not take much of a leap to see how terrifying a prospect this really is.
The system could track your every movement, knowing exactly where you've been and at what time. It would know what you bought and when, and why you used the photocopier at 2am (answer: the office party).
It could stop you coming into work by deactivating the chip, giving you little recourse beyond banging on the window.
Top 10 technology privacy risks: prying phones, spying cars and snooping homes
V3 explains why exciting new innovations have their dark sides
1. The connected home
Perhaps of all the privacy-invading technologies it is the idea of the connected home that is most terrifying. On the surface it sounds great: a connected house that lets you use the internet to control various items, such as the heating or lighting.
But think about it. Your home is now a giant data-gathering hive. It will relentlessly pick up data on your everyday habits: when you get up, when you go to bed, how long you stay in the shower, what food you eat, which lights you leave on and so forth.
Would you really want your everyday life recorded, monitored and stored in such a way? To have all your daily habits kept in a database that can be accessed by all kinds of ‘third parties' whose intentions are unknown?
You may scoff but, as the PRISM revelations have shown, there are people out there willing to gather any data they can for their own purposes, which raises major privacy concerns even if promoted as for our own benefit.
So, think twice before you purchase that connected thermostat or fridge. You could be selling your privacy forever.