Blog
QR Codes have Privacy Issues, and that’s Not All!
- April 4, 2022
- Posted by: Crystal
- Category: Blog
QR Codes are showing up all over the place, and some people are all trusting and other people just aren’t.
That being said, what could possibly go wrong with these QR codes?
For one, you might just want to think twice before randomly scanning a code when out and about in case it has been tampered with. Yes, back on January, 2022 the FBI issued a warning about cybercriminals installing malicious links over legitimate QR Codes. Unsuspecting individuals would scan the code only to be brought to a different app., where they could steal personal information, or even credentials.
Yet, I suppose the question really becomes, where does the data go and where does it stop?
Data is the new gold and leveraging this data is key to control. As mentioned in the Washington Post by Eric Rescorla, Chief Technology Officer of Firefox, it is the broader tracking apparatus the codes are a part of that is of concern, and without new rules & regulations, this tracking won’t be going away…
The question we all have to ask ourselves is how much do we want to be tracked?
Less information may be safer than more on the internet, maybe this was always the case upon reflection. Are we all too late in decreasing our data? I mean yes, QR Codes don’t per say infringe on my privacy… Yet, they can definitely lead to Privacy issues. Issues of Privacy I do not want to deal with for myself or my family.
Schools Using QR Codes for Kindergarten and Grade Students…
Speaking of my family, my journey of understanding QR Codes has taken on another direction. Just last week my son’s Kindergarten Teacher sent my son home with a QR Code specifically for him to use. It is his gateway to his Cloud Projects. I don’t know how I feel about this. Another parent who I’d asked about this QR Code said it was only a link to her child’s Website that housed all of her information for now and years to come. Yet, it is an identity code specifically for my son, and her child too. It doesn’t sit well.
Yes, I’m one of those parents who does not trust easily when it comes to the web and personal information. I’m not one to share pictures to my Facebook Friends of my Child and I am feeling like I don’t want years to come of my child’s data in one place with this QR Code as his identity link.
Am I wrong? What do you think? Some people are okay or feel it is the way to go in the future.
Then there is a question mark about what this cumulative data about my child may do for him?
And, who else may has access to my child’s projects for future usage, or what data may they pull from them? Will Universities years to come from now look at not just the last few years of school? Prying into all of the grade years and looking at past projects? Maybe not now, but who can predict the future.
Continuing, questions like, how long will projects of my child’s be stored in a cloud storage space? How long has the school been using QR Codes? And, most importantly, how safe are they?
With Jason Kenney’s Personal ID that had a QR Code just hacked a while back to show systems aren’t always so secure, my trust is hard placed in this new move to code individuals and track data.
I don’t have a Crystal Ball and some may say I worry to much about where Technology is going, or could could… Yet, what I do and always will have is my intuition. That being said, I am not for QR Codes at this time, and will re-visit this new coding technology in the future when new laws and regulations are put in place, so third parties can’t run with my or my son’s data to who knows where…