Privacy R.I.P
Inside your own head may be the only place these days where you can truly expect privacy. With the aid of technology our society today is monitored prolifically. Law enforcement, government and others besides have the means to see into our homes, through our clothes, to monitor our calls and e-mails and have access to CCTV imagery and transactional data that can track the movements of any citizen in the system.
By Tom Wilson
Our shopping habits and our web surfing preferences form a huge database that can be turned to good use by corporate companies and governments alike. Information is power.
In the past there were limits to how much data could be stored, and although a system was in place to obtain information, those obtaining it needed to be more discerning as to what they kept. Now with the increase in data storage technologies, more and more information about our daily lives is being gathered. This unprecedented access into our private affairs begs the question of do we have any privacy left at all?
Tell all
Some fridges these days have the technology to tell you what is left inside, connect to the Internet, offer recipe ideas based on its contents and contact the local supermarket to get food delivered when it runs out. It can tell you when food has passed its sell-by date or if you are drinking more milk than is healthy for your diet. In fact, the only thing these fridges don’t do is eat the food for you. The technology is in place so that this same information could be used to notify you when you pass a shop with an item required, by way of a text message to let you know that you need butter, for example, and the shop you just passed sells it. All that information, where you went, what you bought, the fact you can afford such an expensive fridge, paints a picture.
Over the course of our daily life we offer breadcrumbs into the system and leave clues as to our likes and dislikes, our current financial situation, even our health. If that information is on an intranet, the World Wide Web, or even in a secure government database, it has the potential to be accessed and, in turn, exploited. In the case of our fridge owner, he’s just happy he remembered the butter but for many the availability of our private information leads to identity theft or worse. At the very least we get accosted by junk mail and telesales calls because our information ended up on someone’s list. Who has our information and how they use it is a cause for concern for all and, although laws exist to protect our privacy, the inevitable advantage stemming from access to this information allows for grey areas in the implementation of these laws. As governments rely on corporations like the telecommunication industry and computer technologies for much of the data provided an I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine approach to data protection is inevitable.
Someone is watching you
There have been mind-boggling advances in technology recently and the world of surveillance and data collection has become saturated with the glut of new information.
These days’ surveillance devices surround us. Where we work, were we shop, where we relax and even in the relative safety of our own homes technology is in place to observe and monitor our every move. There are surveillance systems in development that are only seven millimetres thick, and now the aim is to create a one millimetre surveillance device that could be released in the thousands and blow like dust in the wind, collecting data for up to three weeks at a time. Microscopic spies with the ability to go everywhere.
Proposals to have identity chips in our car’s number plates, displaying all relevant information; insurance, MOT, date of registration, etc., are being introduced and although the tracking of our movements is said not to be the prime objective, inevitably the information will still be available.
Cell phones can be triangulated to within 50 metres of your position. Every keystroke we make on the computer’s keyboard can be recorded by spyware revealing passwords and financial data to the recipient spy. More and more biometric identity recognition devices are being introduced, fingerprints, iris scans, facial recognition software and DNA are being used with this technology, able to identify and track us whenever we input into the system, leading to a clearer and more defined picture of what we do. And, even if nobody is interested in you personally, this information leaves us exposed. We don’t have to be criminals to be watched and exploited and the push by corporations to obtain info that will help them sell more to the consumer is irresistible.
It has been proven that we act differently when we are being observed. Jeremy Betham, a 16th century philosopher, designed a prison called the Panopticon. Its basic premise was that if a prisoner did not know when they were being watched (the actions of the guards being hidden from view), but was aware that there was always a possibility he was being watched, fear based obedience would follow. A prisoner would conform more quickly and in addition it would take fewer officers to control the environment. It could be seen that the Panopticon effect is now prevalent in modern society and, more and more, we realise that by using the technologies available we are indeed aiding the powers that be to control our movements, our actions and ultimately giving away freedoms that are ours by right.
Right… or wrong?
Where the information is used correctly you can see the advantages, crime is reduced in areas of high surveillance and in time you’ll never forget the butter again, but laws on privacy are struggling to keep up with the increase in technology, as there are different requirements as to access of privacy by different agencies. For example, a government may argue that it requires full access in order to better protect and serve, whilst a company may insist that it is imperative to increase sales and offer customers a more bespoke and complete service. This allows for loopholes and that leaves us exposed.
The issue is not whether we have anything to hide but more do we have the right to choose when personal information about us can and should be available to others. After all, this information belongs to us.
‘You have ZERO privacy. Get over it.’Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsoft Systems Inc.
Right now personal data is being traded as a commodity and sold, not necessarily for our benefit. And, of course, one big problem with technology is that it is not always right. A case in point in the US sees a mother and two daughters arrested for murder, the damming evidence came from a CCTV camera at an ATM machine placing the hapless family in the area at the exact time of the murder. Only three weeks later did it surface that the ATM had an error with its timer. The family was free to go but the damage to three lives was already done.
The future
We never know when the winds of change will blow through political agendas and what is seen as harmless today could be construed as anti-establishment tomorrow.
It is not all gloom and doom, big brother is definitely watching but he has a lot of siblings to keep an eye on. So for most, the mass of data collected serves to hone marketing strategies and political agendas as a whole rather than focusing on the individual, but, again, the danger is if, for some reason, and that can be erroneous, we come under the spotlight, our history is easily found and exposed. Everyone deserves to keep their private life private and only when the use of privacy laws offer definite consequences for abuse of the same will we be protected. Currently, we are not protected from abuse, even prince Charles had his phone illegally tapped and the resulting transcript was laid bare to an eager press, and he is royalty!
Take a look around you. Are you close to an ATM? A camera? Is your mobile next to you or a computer? You are under surveillance right now. Welcome to the Panopticon 2008. Scott McNealy is probably right: we don’t have much privacy these days but what we do have is a right to protect that which we do have. This right will come when controls are placed on the use of data, as well as its collection and storage, and when we become more discerning about the type of information we release. But, if the truth be known, the only thing that may end up protecting our privacy could be the sheer volume of data now available, the wood from the trees.
David Brin author of the Transparent Society states: “It is already far too late to prevent the invasion of cameras and databases; no matter how many laws are passed, they are here to stay”. And he is probably right. Maybe we should just get used to it. But on the other hand, maybe it is time we took notice and pay a little more attention to those who are collecting and using the data about us. Perhaps we should not blindly accept that it is in our best interests for others to have so much access to our daily lives or soon we may find freedom of information becomes a shackle to the masses. A prison without walls that we are all forced to attend.
