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Should online anonymity be protected, at all costs?

This was the question put to us in our Week 5 lecture on Ethics and Technology. My first instinct was to completely agree that online anonymity is essential and must be protected.

According to the Central Statistics Office, 89% of Irish homes in 2018 had access to the internet. With so many of us putting so much of our personal information online, it seems to me that the protection of this information is more important than ever.

Personal information means any data that can lead to the identification of an individual. This could be a name, a location, an IP address or an email. The protection of this personal information is essential in preventing cyber crime such as identity theft, hacking, or harassment.

In 2016, the European Union introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a regulation in EU law on “the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data”.

And yet even some of the biggest social media platforms are still struggling to get it right, with companies like Facebook and Google getting hit with heavy fines over breaches in users’ privacy.

However, I also think that not all internet users deserve online anonymity. For example, perpetrators of cyberbullying should not be entitled to remain anonymous. Although I don’t think they should be outed publicly (as this can often lead to a witch hunt), the appropriate authorities should be able to access identifying information to ensure the protection of the victims.

Basically, the question of online anonymity is a contentious one and quite complex. But what do you think? Should every internet user be entitled to complete anonymity or should it be decided on a case by case basis? Let me know what you think in the comments!