Facial Based Advertising: Data Security

With the rise of social media there has been a significant increase in data that people are revealing about themselves.  Many people do not realize that an app, game, service they are using actually is letting advertisers and companies know specific and accurate information of their audience. 

We have seen this problem come to the surface with the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which millions of Facebook users data was sold to use for advertising.  How is this a problem?  Well advertisers are not only able to receive physical characteristics such as age and gender, but with the rise of social media, advertisers are now able to obtain psychographic information such as interests and hobbies.  From there, advertisers can strategically use ads to sway your opinions and views, based on things you like or are interested in.

This is shown with this video in which, fans of sporting events are now able to access a facial-based identifying app.  This is a fan engagement tool used to entice people to want to use the app so they can see photos of themselves in the audience.  However, the overall goal is for advertisers to understand the demographics of their audience.  When people use the app they accept the terms to publish their information.  So they are letting the app know their age, gender, sexuality, profession, email, and much more.  So for example, on Tuesday's a sporting event can know the majority of their fans are white, middle aged women.  From there advertisers can determine which ads they want to publish on throughout the stadium during each night.

In my opinion, I think there needs to be regulations on social media and the data advertisers are allowed to obtain.  Also, I think there needs to be a movement to educate the public that these tools, games, quizzes, services, etc. are being used to obtain specific data, not to entertain people.