Exploring Privacy Concerns Amidst the 2016 Nostalgia Trend

If you’ve spent any time on social media lately, you’ll have noticed a trend of throwing it back – way back – to one decade earlier. Suddenly, it has become trendy to marinate in nostalgia from 2016, a year when the first season of Stranger Things aired, Rihanna’s Work dominated the airwaves, and reality star and real estate developer Donald Trump won the U.S. election – for the first time. Celebrities like Reese Witherspoon, Charlie Puth, Lily Collins and Canada’s Shay Mitchell have jumped on the trend, by posting photos of themselves from that year, to show how much (or how little) they’ve changed. However, one expert is warning that this trend can inadvertently reveal sensitive information that could lead to a breach of your privacy. Ritesh Kotak is a cybersecurity and tech analyst from Toronto. He tells CTVNews.ca that there are a few things to consider when participating in the online trend, namely permanence and repercussions, since “there’s no such thing as delete on the internet.” “If you’re posting something that you haven’t previously posted or if you have a private profile, just understand that there’s a good chance that that information could go public,” he said. Kotak warns that people who are posting personal family images from 2016, particularly minors, risk having those images used by artificial intelligence. “AI algorithms are continuously learning,” he said. “So now, if you have an image of somebody, of how they looked a few years ago and what they look like now, this is data that the AI algorithms will be able to track and potentially use without somebody’s consent.” Throwing back to big moments, like buying a first car or posting the first day in front of an elementary school, could reveal details to common security questions. “A lot of security questions can essentially be found by doing online searches if you’re going to be putting up personal information,” said Kotak. “What middle school did I attend? And there’s a picture of somebody at their middle school. … What was the colour of my first car? Those common security questions a lot of organizations use to verify identity before giving out personal information or making account-related changes.” He warns that if you’re posting information about these personal life moments, it’ll be easy for a hacker or fraudster to gain access to your accounts and pretend to be you, in a practice known as social engineering. By signing up to online platforms, users agree to share their data with them. Posting vintage photos also gives social media companies access to more of your metadata, like where the photo was taken, what device it was taken with and who else was in the photo. It gets fed to the algorithm, which can then draw inferences about the user. Those details then “hyper-target” information towards the user for commercial purposes. “A lot of people don’t realize you’re not paying to get on these platforms, which means you are the product,” said Kotak. “Your data is the product, and that is what these organizations are hoping for. The more data, the more precise they’re targeting, the more they can commercialize the information.”