Privacy issues: systems about which our students need to know
David A. Scanlan · Journal of computing sciences in colleges · 2015
This article describes the need for our students to be fully aware of the potential dangers to our freedoms resulting from systems that they may be asked to design and program when they enter the workforce. The author suggests that students be told about questionable systems which are current and about systems planned for the future that could have severe consequences for our freedoms due to a loss of privacy. A major goal of any totalitarian system is to know about every citizen. For example, the East German Stasi was one of these systems. A major goal of the Stasi was to know everything about everybody. The more information the Stasi had, the more effectively they could control the population. The author is not suggesting that a Stasi-like system will come to the United States, but we are evolving into a society where the government has access to far too much data about its citizens. A country only has freedom as long as the citizens are vigilant; and vigilance to privacy issues is extremely important. If there are information systems that present a danger to our freedoms, then our students need to know about them so that they will be better prepared to say no to their involvement. This article discusses only systems about which students may not be aware.