ABBREVIATING THE RANDOM

RETRIEVAL OF USERS’ DATA

ON SOCIAL MEDIA THROUGH
DATA ENGINEERING

GROUP D
JOHN WOGU | KUCELI ENGLAMA | ABDUL-QUDUS JIMOH | OLUWAMAYOWA MIKE-ADEOGUN | MOHAMMED UMAR BELLO 1
 INTRODUCTION
• Social media is a web-based platform that helps us share information and opinions. Without doubt,
social media is presently the most powerful communication tool. The social media companies have
access to these data that users put out or post which can be sold to their affiliates and partners. These
third party attacks involve data engineering as it deals with data collection and analysis.
• It is possible for one to secure their sensitive information to prevent cybercriminals from gaining
access to them. Every individual is accountable for the protection of his or her personal information.
Although some terms and conditions on social media platforms can seem complex, it is important to
always go through them. By agreeing to these terms, social media network, websites and mobile
applications could be granted the permission to collect, process and sell personal details.

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 RESEARCH STUDIES

• We give out our data, whether we realize it or not, every time we visit a website or use social
media. These data could be birthday, email address, residential address, gender identity and
phone number.
• New research conducted by a tech reporter, Jordan Hogan, suggests that users’ data are being
sent all around the world. In his report, he mentioned a new study by MacKeeper, a software
company for digital privacy, which investigated 56 websites including, Instagram, amazon,
Walmart, Facebook, Slack and LinkedIn among others to examine where users’ data is being
sent.

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 CONT’D
• Thierry Ngutegure, a Data and Insights Manager, mentioned that, “Once the data is being
pinged around and shared with third party people and sent to other countries where their
data privacy laws may not be as stringent as the origin of said data it means they can
package up and create a really holistic view of that individual, far greater than their
individual entity that they were collecting, to begin with” [4].
• Users can be allowed to select whether or not to authorize the application they are using
to track their data reclaiming some control for themselves. This practice has now been
adopted by companies like Google and Apple. On the other hand, companies like
Instagram, claim that the users’ data gathered is beneficial to its business because it helps
provide personalized ads to assist small businesses.

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 METHODOLOGY

• A questionnaire was created to ask social media users questions. AUN instructors and
students were asked those questions. The survey's purpose was to see how users reacted to
various privacy-related options, as well as if they were even aware of them or cared about
them. The respondents were randomly selected to participate in the survey.

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 SURVEY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

The following questions were asked of 5 participants:

• Question: Do you use the social media to share your personal information?

Yes, 40% of the participants share personal information, according to their responses.
Participants were also asked if their social media content was private and only shared with
their friends. Unfortunately, some people did not even use the data-sharing capabilities of
their limited service

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 CONT’D
• Question: Have you read your social media privacy statement and terms of service?
When asked about their social media privacy statement, 60% stated that they had not
even attempted to read the terms of service. The rest of those who took part in the
survey read a portion of the privacy statement. The privacy statement is quite long,
making it hard to read in a reasonable amount of time. Although some users may not
agree with any of the claims after reading it, there is no option to challenge or change
these statements. As a result, if clients do not agree with the terms of service statement,
they can either accept it or refuse to use the services.

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 RECOMMENDATIONS

Below are some suggestions on ways to prevent unwanted access to user content and privacy:
• Personal information: Users should not supply unnecessary personal data on social media.
• Location information: The location information of a user can be obtained possibly through
the position specified by the user when setting up his or her profile. One’s location
information on social media should not really be revealed in order to avoid attacks.

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 CONT’D

Antivirus and antimalware: An anti-virus prevents the execution of an already attacked file so
that no other file on your computer can be affected. An anti-malware, on the other hand, “scans
a computer system to prevent, detect and remove malware” [13]. It is recommended to have
antivirus and antimalware software programs to protect one’s computer and files in them.

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 CONCLUSION

Social media has completely transformed our lives. It is a powerful tool that helps us communicate
daily. It is undeniably beneficial to human life. Along with the significant benefits, social media has
some drawbacks. Users are vulnerable to security and privacy issues. These issues may be caused
by third parties who rely on the user data gotten from social media sites. The ultimate goal of this
research was to discuss the security and privacy issues surrounding social media as well as the
means by which third parties retrieve users’ data through data engineering with probable
suggestions on how users can protect themselves from falling victim.

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 REFERENCES
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 CONT’D
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THANK YOU!

QUESTIONS?

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