Before Jesse Miller’s presentation, I was aware of how little privacy social media provided. I remember the guest speakers coming into my elementary and high school to warn the students and staff about how much of their personal life was being monitored and stored by social media platforms. As a social media user, myself, I remember feeling very uncomfortable about how vulnerable I was on the internet, and I felt the same way on Monday after being reminded. After Jesse’s presentation, I decided to further my understanding of how much data the internet typically collects by doing some research about the privacy policy of a new and popular platform: BeReal.
After reading through the policy form, I was not surprised to discover that BeReal collects a similar amount of data to Snapchat. Not only does it save the personal information that you enter when you create an account but, it also tracks your activity (the photos you send, your contacts, invitations, etc.) and keeps the data for at least three years. The app also automatically tracks your location unless you manually turn off that setting. The privacy policy describes that all this data is collected to prevent violence and abuse and will not be shared with anyone unless granted permission by the user. After listening to Jesse’s talk, however, I am confident there is a lot of reading between the lines that need to happen in order to fully understand this policy and the privacy it actually promises BeReal users.
Here is the link to the BeReal privacy policy page: https://bere.al/en/privacy
