Balancing Trust and Privacy
I am a privacy nut. I even chose to remove google from my personal life completely. I did this because I wanted to control my information, who has it, and how it is used. This being said, I also started looking into accountability software and how the market worked. From the outside, accountability software and privacy mix like oil and water, however, the more research I did and the more I dug, I saw that this wasn’t the case. This also made me look at how companies can learn from the importance of privacy. Privacy is more than just keeping your information a secret.
Types of Accountability Software
Accountability software is an application that runs on someone’s computer and/or phone and monitors internet activity. This is used in many cases to disincentivize or prevent someone from accessing content that is deemed objectionable. These types of programs require at least two people, one of which is the person who is trying to stop accessing the objectionable content, and the other being the accountability partner. There are three different methods in which different software does this.
- Blockers
Blockers monitor your internet traffic and either only lets you access sites that are approved by your accountability partner or prevents you from accessing sites that they deem objectionable. These are called blacklists and whitelists respectively.
- Accountability
The accountability method monitors your computer and/or phone’s activity and then sends a report to your accountability partner
- Accountability and Blockers
This Method Uses a mixture of both the accountability method and the blocker method to prevent and disincentivize accessing sites that are deemed objectionable.
Potential Privacy Issues
Privacy seems like a huge issue when looking at accountability software. Accountability software can read every single website that you go to and send that to other people. For a privacy-conscious individual, this is scary! It looks like it’s a more obtrusive version of online trackers on websites, however, this is not always the case. The company makes money by giving your data to you and not to any other company and therefore there is no incentive to do so. Despite that, they still have records of your web traffic on their servers which could be a security risk. Another issue with some of the accountability software is that it doesn’t let you run your own VPN. This is not only an issue for privacy but also an issue for some jobs that require a VPN to access work content. Despite this, Many Accountability Software companies address these issues and try to retain trust and privacy, however, almost none of them are private by design. A private by design system would mean that not even the company providing the accountability software would know what websites you have accessed, only your accountability partner would.
Covenant Eyes
The Most popular accountability software company is Covenant Eyes. While I was looking into how these companies treat privacy, I came across an article by this company. It said, “Now, let’s be honest. The entire premise behind accountability is to give up some of our privacy by allowing someone we know and trust insight into how we use technology. When we know someone else sees where we click and what we view, it often compels us to use our devices with integrity. That’s the beauty of accountability.” This shows exactly what privacy is, however, Covenant Eyes also misses the mark because they forget to mention that they view your information as well. The article then starts talking about a new feature they have and say that it is private and secure, but they still missed a HUGE detail that is the most important thing about privacy. They don’t even mention the fact that they are logging every single website you access on their servers.
Two Views On Privacy
When looking at accountability aoftware, I came to realize that there are two differing views on privacy. There is the Secrecy View and there is the Control View. These two viewpoints have differing perspectives on how one’s information should be treated. The Secrecy View says that only you should see your information and no one else should. This works in some cases but is ultimately flawed. If you are having a private conversation, it necessitates another person’s knowledge of information and thus giving the ability to control it. That is where we come to the Control View. This view has less to do about keeping a secret, and more to do about being in control and being able to choose who has that information.
Your information is valuable, therefore you need to choose who to trust that information with, and sometimes that means choosing a middle man, such as accountability software. The best way to have privacy or control is to cut out the middle man, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have privacy without it. No matter what, you have to trust someone, you just have to make sure you trust the right people.
Application
Seeing this made me start to think about how accountability software companies need to run to be successful. These companies need to be trustworthy. This applies to any business or sale. No one wants to work with someone who isn’t trustworthy. People have an inherent desire to control their lives and information, and that includes the companies that they work with. The company needs to do everything they can to make the customer feel like they are in control. After all, as the saying goes, “the customer is king.” Being a privacy-friendly company is just one way a company can have customers trust you more.
This can go further into my own life. How trustworthy am I? If I want to do business with or work for someone then I have to prove not only that I’m worth it. But that I can be trusted.
Conclusion
So like I said before, I am a privacy nut, but that’s not what most people think it is. I just care about who I do business with. The accountability software market taught me that it’s not about not sharing anything with anyone, it’s about trusting the right people. This reveals the importance of a company’s trustworthiness. So next time you go into a job interview or try to make that next sale, think about privacy. Because the person on the other side may not care about their privacy per se, but they are asking, “can I trust you?”
