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The Beat Goes On

added: 08.13.2013, by Mike Spinney

The fallout from Edward Snowden’s disclosure of a massive domestic surveillance program run by the National Security Agency is ongoing and worth following. Just like Sonny told Cher: the beat goes on.

Last week President Obama announced that, coincident to revelations that the United States government is collecting just about every bit of data generated by citizens as they talk, email, and search and browse the internet, a review of the NSA’s data collection procedures will be undertaken and changes made.

And reverberations from the whistle blown by Snowden are also echoing well beyond American borders. Because it is now known that U.S. companies shared information with the NSA, in Brussels the European Parliament has vowed to take action to protect the privacy of its citizens by tightening restrictions on cross-border data transfer.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the EU’s Jan-Philip Albrecht said, "The importance has been made clear now with all these revelations, we need cross-border rules, European rules, to safeguard fundamental rights. It makes the debate more vivid."

While the volume and extent of the NSA’s surveillance program is eye-opening, the issue of data sharing is not new. Data collection and sharing have been happening for a long time – long before the advent of the World Wide Web. What’s new is the public’s growing realization that the digital trail they leave behind merely as a result of existing in a modern society is being watched closely. And that they need to do more to protect themselves from having sensitive information shared unintentionally with others.

Interest in technologies that can help to cloak that digital trail, or choosing companies that have taken an affirmative stand against data sharing has risen since Snowden’s story first broke. Of course, HoGo is proud to join the ranks of companies offering ways to protect documents shared over the Internet.

Why not kick our tires and see what you think? It’s free during our beta launch.