Of the 11 activities that most people do online without realizing they’re illegal, I think the top five most serious offenses are illegal searches, collecting information on children, sharing the personal information of others, recording voice calls without consent, and faking your identity online. I think faking your identity online is generally the least serious of the five because while there are situations of identity theft that are dangerous, I think most instances of people faking their identity are pranks or creating new identities to take advantage of certain opportunities. “Faking your identity online” could be as complex as stealing someone’s personal information or as simple as creating a fake email to get a free Netflix trial, so I think it really depends on how you are faking your identity. I think recording voice calls would be the next in terms of seriousness because you are violating the privacy of someone but only recording details they are comfortable sharing with you. Depending on who you are, most voice calls will probably contain information that won’t harm someone that badly unless they have said something truly heinous. While personal information could be captured by this process, I don’t think simply having a recording of someone would be dangerous, but sharing it definitely would be, which leads to the next most serious offense. Sharing the information of others online is the midpoint in terms of seriousness in my opinion because someone could get seriously hurt or even killed depending on what it is. For instance, sharing someone’s full legal name and address could simply lead to someone playing a prank on them or to them having a fake bomb threat called in and SWAT units showing up at their house (also known as Swatting). Regardless of what happens, I think the person who shared the information is partially responsible for whatever happens to the person after their information is shared. The second most serious would be illegal searches, as they can contain harmful information or lead to the harm of others depending on what they are. Illegal information can include ways to harm others and searches like this should be taken seriously because ignoring them could lead to the death of many individuals. Finally, I think the most serious offense is collecting information on children because of their position in the world in terms of vulnerability. While parents can protect their kids in the real world, most parents aren’t tech-savvy enough to protect their kids online and most kids are either too young to know better or don’t have the risk assessment abilities to understand the risks of online activities. Additional laws to protect children are necessary to prevent information about them from being gathered and possibly used for ill intentions.

Website: https://clario.co/blog/illegal-things-you-do-online/