Terms And Conditions Applied
One of the hardest parts about a tech policy is explaining to people what it entails. Consent is a fancy term in this digital age. Terms and conditions imply much more than they convey. Many find it cumbersome to go through the endless cryptic words that recount us the Terms and Conditions, thus lucidly clicking the ‘I ACCEPT’ button. But when you click ‘I Accept’ on a website, do you really know what you are agreeing to? And whether this consent is valid is a topic of discussion among privacy experts around the world.
While some believe that authorisation is the bedrock of the modern digital economy, others find the notion of accepting Terms and Conditions outdated. Privacy policies are widely used by online service providers to regulate the use of personal data they collect, but users often skip on reading them and are unaware of the way information about them is being treated. And how they can control in which that information is collected, stored or shared.
Terms and Conditions are central in acquiring user consent from service providers. Using the SMOG readability formula which is a measure of readability that estimates the years of education needed to understand a piece of writing and UK Energy Services as a case study, a group of researchers observed that a series of supplier terms and conditions were far beyond what a functionally literate adult could be expected to understand.
The term that deals with such a mishap is ‘ Fine Print ‘. It refers to contract terms and conditions, disclosures, or other important information that is not included in the main body of a document but placed in footnotes or a supplemental document.
Reading and understanding fine print is essential when entering into an agreement. It often contains information that the issuer doesn’t want to call to the recipient’s attention but that is essential for the recipient to know. Sometimes fine print might not be considered a lucrative business, therefore the writers of the contract bury it as opposed to putting it front and centre, making it difficult to understand the real objectives. The fine print is often controversial because it is deceptive in nature.
The goal is to make the reader believe that the offer is better than it might actually be. The main question is why a majority of us don’t do a proper inspection of the stipulations provided. Well firstly, we’re probably under the assumption we won’t be able to understand anything because it is written in legal gobbledygook. And secondly, we have got no patience or time to cast an eye over the endless sentences describing the terms.
Understanding the grievance of the topic Norwegian Consumer Council or the NCC set up the #appfail campaign to highlight the issues of consumer protection, data sharing and privacy policies hidden in the abyss of T&Cs across 20 popular apps. The fact to be acquainted with is that T&Cs have never been updated for the digital age.
If you are buying a piece of land, then you have to scrutinize hundreds of words in small print — because that’s how the estate business works. Purchases and service agreements rarely get much bigger than property-related transactions so such wordiness is understandable. But why should using a free weather app or setting up a new device involves similarly protracted terms?
The trend of the Internet Of Things or the ‘IOT’ complicates this mess. This is how it is going to work. You have to read 2000 to 10000 words of conditions for each device you try to convert into a smart one. Add to that, lots of these connected devices won’t have a screen at all, which sets up the vague notion of going through manuals, which humans think are of use to their mere existence. What is IoT you ask? Well, that’s an article for a different time. Coming back to the topic, it doesn’t have to be this way. If T&Cs were designed to communicate the service’s scope and functions efficiently and effectively so that humans could actually understand: A) How it works and B) Which bits of their data are absolutely required for it to function — these screeds could be cut down to fewer bullet points.
If you were able to read and understand the terms and conditions, you would realise that the documents pass the burden of safeguarding our data away from companies and that consent provided at different times can authorise patterns of data collection that no service provider could have foreseen.
Not only does consent need to be updated, but it also needs to be reimagined for a world that might not always understand why sharing information is important. For example, most people cannot immediately understand why an app like Google Pay might need access to location data. If there is fraudulent activity, then knowing where it happened can be an essential piece of information to get remedial action.
Not long ago, BBC addressed a very interesting topic and things consumers don’t want to do. On BCC’s top list of those things reading terms and conditions ranked at number two. This is a bad practice for numerous reasons. It basically boils down to not knowing what the company’s and third party’s rights and obligations are, or what you, as a consumer, can expect from the company.
Ever since the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, users are far more concerned about how much of their data is being shared and if companies are adhering to privacy rights. But this isn’t a new issue. Back in 2012, Instagram had updated its privacy policy, stating that they had the right to sell users’ photos to advertisers without any notification and even though Instagram dropped the policy after public backlash, the popular social media app was believed to have lost nearly 50% of its users.
Of Course, with a current estimated 1 billion + users, this unforeseen tiny mistake has not presented too much damage, but it could have easily gone downhill, especially if users find out the hard way. Are these T&Cs replaceable? A House Of Lords committee has a recommendation of introducing a ‘Kite Mark’ to identify websites that meet EU or the European Union standards for handling and processing personal data. This proposal would provide a visual symbol for consumers to know that they weren’t signing up for anything they objected to.
This could even involve a traffic light system to give an indication of what degree of data privacy protection a website offered. Those that meet the requirements will be permitted to display a ‘privacy seal’, telling customers that a trusted third party has approved the firm’s operating practices. But yet the loopholes exist. The plain idea of ruling out terms and conditions is quite a bit complex. the main problem being, to find a good way of visually conveying information about the complex nuances of personal data handling.
As tech advances and applications become more interconnected, the need for consent increases while the method through which it is collected remains outdated. Terms and Conditions got us till here; we should not let them take us any further. They should not affect our lives. After all ‘ Life Is Beautiful ‘ — Terms and Conditions applied.
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