As more people combine their lives with social media and share personal data, they may become vulnerable to cyberstalking, data breaches and other acts of intrusion. As this problem grows on many social media platforms and apps, more people put themselves at risk.
Within recent years, there have been many reported cases of big-name corporate entities being hacked, such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and many others. According to the ITRC (Identity Theft Resource Center), there were 3,158 compromises with 1,350,835,988 people notifying this organization about personal data breaches in 2024. These breaches attacked different industries such as financial services, healthcare, personal services, manufacturing and education, which all hold a plethora of personal data.
Recently, Life360 had a data breach, which resulted in its users’ data being sold on the dark web. According to ClassAction, a lawsuit investigation organization, more than 400,000 users’ data was leaked online, including names, phone numbers and addresses. Hackers accomplished this by exploiting Life360’s login API (Application Programming Interface). If this lawsuit is successful, it may force Life360 to take proper steps to protect users’ data.
Cases like this have led to a distrust in these industries. According to Pew Research, 77% of Americans have little to no trust in the leaders of social media companies to publicly admit mistakes and take responsibility for data misuse. Alongside this distrust, information that has already spread has resulted in cyberstalking. A case that has affected many was Sumit Garg, who was previously employed as a privacy consultant. According to the Secret Service, Garg used his experience to harass multiple victims by sending thousands of explicit photos, messages and images. This eventually grew into threats of rape, torture and death, which were spread nationwide.
Giving crucial information to strangers online may result in cyberstalking; however, it can also cause stalking and kidnapping attempts, such as the case of William Blankenship. According to ABC 7 Eyewitness News, Blankenship was accused of using Snapchat’s location-sharing feature to stalk and attempt to kidnap 2 people at the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, even holding them at gunpoint.
Despite these events, companies such as Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp continue to normalize sharing location information. Users do have an option to disable these features; however, they are encouraged to use them.
As more information gets shared with different corporations, the likelihood of users’ information being accessed illegally increases. Companies placing more procedures in place to protect users’ data could significantly improve security and may reduce harassment or even casualties.
