PLEASE HELP!!!!

The issue of protecting privacy online can be explained using the following examples. Studies show how metadata can be used to avoid privacy protections in commercial and government databases. MIT analyzed 1.1 million peoples transactions made anonymously with their credit cards. They were able to identify the unique individual purchasing patterns of 90% of the people involved by using an analytic formula. This formula involved only four parts of secondary information such as location or timing; this was found even without names, account number or other obvious information. They experimented with 10,000 stores over three months. Each transaction was time stamped and linked to a shop. Just from this information alone they could tell a persons purchasing pattern. Even further, they could find the name by matching activity to publically available information. The conclusion can be made that we expose more about ourselves than we realize. MIT has proven it is extremely difficult to remove the ability to identify people, especially because of financial data. This will add to debates on personal data gained by government surveillance programs. An example of this is when Uber said it used customer records with local crime reports to find likelihood of riders visiting prostitutes. MIT researchers could tell as far as whether a male or female was shopping, or from which income bracket. Another example is how the Obama administration reversed itself by holding back the amount of personal information released from the governments health insurance website, HealthCare.gov. Changes were made due to a report that said the website was sending consumers personal data to private companies that specialize in advertising. The information shared was age, income, ZIP code, tobacco use and whether a woman was pregnant. Later analysis verified the administration had made changes to reduce the release of personal information. Third-party sites cannot see your name on HealthCare.gov, but they can connect you using your Internet activities. Even though the policy says no personally identifiable information is collected, other small personal details were allowed.

a. In your opinion, who is held accountable for the protection of privacy online? Should the user limit their information they put on the Internet, or should companies and websites be held accountable for securing their information?

b. Analyze the ethical decision behind changing the amount of personal information released from HealthCare.gov. Was this ethically correct? Was there more that could be done on the governments part?