They're watching you! Digital peepholes face a fine line between security and invasion of privacy

Sharing your thoughts, activities and whereabouts has never been easier and faster with the internet and connected devices. More and more people are sharing more of their daily lives that it's compelling to say that to know everything is becoming common and normal. However, issues between security and just being plain creepy arise with new devices that enable individuals and companies to find and store all the information we are putting up.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) -  "We are on the trajectory of a future filled with voice-assisted apps and voice-assisted devices. This is going to require finding the fine balance between creating a really great user experience and something that's creepy," said Fatemeh Khatibloo, an analyst with the Forrester Research.

Applications, like Siri on Apple devices, and an external type, like Amazon's Echo, are becoming popularly used for several reasons that could be overlooking sensibilities, liabilities and legalities on privacy.

These "digital peepholes" enable another person to constantly keep track of one's online behavior with simple instructions.

"I guess there is a difference between deciding to share something and having something captured by something that you don't know when it's listening," said Anjana Agarwal, a mother who purchased and used the Echo, which ended up creeping her daughter out.

Her 16-year-old hid the $180 cylindrical listening device that uses voice-recognition technology and stores and analyzes the recorded conversations that the company promises to use for better service of their customers.

"We think it's misleading to only present the potential conveniences of this technology without also presenting the huge number of possible drawbacks," said Director Julia Horwitz of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, pushing that the FTC to set strict security standards and limitations on the storage and usage of the harvested personal information.

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