Nowadays, almost every popular application or website we use collects our personal information and stores it in its servers. While this trend may have some advantages, I remain strongly convinced that its disadvantages outweigh them.
The phenomenon of internet companies holding our information might have some reasonable advantages. First of all, applications are designed to be convenient for us to use, and in order to be so, they require some information, mainly our preferences, social status, or geographical location. For example, online shopping websites collect data on our purchased or just viewed products to set their recommendations that fit us. Another advantage of personal information being in large corporations’ servers is that it allows us to store our images, videos, and other important information safely using online cloud platforms. This way we will not have to worry about losing them because of local hardware errors.
Despite of such advantages, I strongly believe disadvantages are more detrimental. First of all, our personal information could be exposed to third parties. A potential reason for this could be a flaw in their cybersecurity, allowing other people to access their servers and leak the private data of thousands, if not millions, of people. Another downside is that companies could use your information in their commercial goals. For instance, there has been a case of a certain company that sold its users’ data to third parties.
In conclusion, I admit that companies storing our information could make our lives more convenient. However, there are many threats involved, so the chance of having your data exposed to the whole world outweighs its convenience.