Friday, May 30, 2014
Privacy in the modern world is really an illusion
“Yeah,” I replied, closing the lid of my laptop. “About that….”
Undeterred, he went about his rant how we live in an oversharing world, where people seem to believe “that every single errant thought, routine errand and bowel movement is worth a chirp!”
“Tweet,” I corrected.
“Whatever!” he said disgustedly. “My point is what the hell happened to the idea that other people should keep their noses out of my business? In my day, people used to get upset when they found out other people were eavesdropping into their private affairs. Today it seems like people get upset if the world doesn’t know what they are doing!”
I smiled sadly at the Elder Geek. “Welcome to ‘The Brave New World’ of Edward Snowden and the NSA, WikiLeaks, Google and Big Data.”
“I think you mean ‘Big Brother’,” he corrected.“Whatever,” I said.
The Elder Geek frowned. “How can people be so casual about this? Doesn’t anybody care that there is all this private information floating around about them for everyone to see!”
“Why should they care, when no one else does?” I asked. “With red-light and security cameras popping up on virtually every corner and their own personal devices spying on them, people just seem to take it for granted that privacy in the modern world is really an illusion. Like the citizens of Oz, we’ve all been fooled into ignoring the man behind the curtain.”
“Why that’s outrageous!” the Elder Geek stammered.
I nodded. “You’re right, but people have become so enamored by the magical powers of their smart phones, TVs and thermostats; tablet computers and customer loyalty cards and the convenience of Internet shopping, that they don’t seem to care that both their every physical and online move is being tracked. Like junkies, we’ve become addicted to our high-tech devices and now we can’t live without them.”
“Well they should learn!” the Elder Geek grumbled.
“Easier said than done. Unlike the good old 1980s, it’s nearly impossible to keep all your data private. Julia Angwin, an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal , tried it and wrote about it in her book, “Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance.” Among the things she tried was not using Google nor any of its related services and she even resorted to carrying a “burner” cell phone, but she still found that for the average person, it was nearly impossible to keep her anonymity online. You can hear her talk about her experiences in this interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” program.
“So what you’re saying is that there is no hope and we’d better get used to Big Brother…or Big Data or whomever watching our every move?” he asked resignedly.
“No. Not exactly. Earlier this month, the European Union Court of Justice came out with a ruling stating that people have ‘the right to be forgotten,’ and part of that right includes letting people erase traces of their digital past from the Internet.”
“Well that’s encouraging!” he said brightly.
“Yeah well don’t get your hopes up yet,” I said trying to put a damper on his expectations. “As much as I agree with that sentiment, the courts over there are going about it the wrong way. They are putting the onus on Google to delete that information from their search results.”
“So what’s a matter with that?” he asked.
“Well it’s like asking a carpenter to put a self-closing hinge on the barn door after the horse has escaped, instead of putting a lock on the door BEFORE the horse got out,” I explained. “Just making Google exclude the information from their search results won’t get rid of the data. I know it’s hard to believe, but there are other search engines out there besides Google. (Anyone remember AltaVista? Yahoo? Dogpile? Bing?) And it won’t stop the company that originally collected that data on you from using that outdated information in the future. What the courts should have really mandated is that the companies who collect your data be legally obligated to purge their information on you every few years. Then we will be getting somewhere.”
The Elder Geek pondered this for a moment. “So how do you propose doing this?” he asked.
I gave him a mischievous smile. “Why sharing it with everyone on Facebook and Tweeting about it with #DeleteMe of course!”
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