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There’s no hiding the horror of a world without privacy

Maria Moscaritolo

by Maria Moscaritolo

28 Aug 05:40am

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Filed under: Privacy, Surveillance, Technology

35 comments

Will the notion of privacy be dead in future? And who’s going to be left to care?

Heh heh. Nobody will ever find me in here. Pic: AP

Young kids are growing up in an environment where it is normal to disclose their every thought, location and photo to friends and strangers alike on social media. Integrated technology allows businesses and governments to compile a dossier of information about your finances and personal life with every transaction.

Even now, with so much of your habits unwittingly disclosed by what you buy and look at online, you’ve shared more with your ISP than your own family probably knows. Without doubt, there is more information about you floating in the ether at the moment than you realise. Numberplate tracking, loyalty programs, website caching, online purchases and banking data, medical info, download histories… even your current location thanks to the GPS on the smartphone in your pocket.

And, as a bonus, the information is there for the taking by anyone with the skills and curiosity to bother hacking it.

In the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report, iris scanners allowed authorities to keep close tabs on everyone’s movements. What was futuristic a decade ago is being brought closer to life with constant technological advancement.

Besides iris recognition and other biometric ID systems, well-intentioned science has given us the first mind “reading” technology that can decode the brain activity caused by heard words, and reconstruct what we’re thinking into images.

Then take Google’s latest foray. It is developing glasses that can record and upload everything the wearer is seeing. Project Glass is essentially a wearable computer. Fascinating on many levels, but it would also turn everyone who comes into view into unwitting, instant “extras” in that annoying gadget-loving person’s life.

So, whatever you happen to be doing - slurping down hot coffee, surreptitiously picking your nose, arguing with a salesperson, enjoying a romantic moment at the park, stuffing up a three-point turn, maybe even using a public urinal - you would likely be powerless to stop the passing wearer uploading the images immediately into the cloud, where your moments in time can remain forever. Facial recognition technology would mean users wouldn’t need your name to identify you either.

The wall between our public and private lives is already crumbling thanks to social media that lets you share your every action and waking thought with an army of near-strangers, should you choose. People who have never been inside your house or introduced to your family are privy to your musings, changes in your relationship status, they’ve seen your holiday snaps, have an idea of your political views, your favourite haunts.

It’s so normalised that kids shows like Play School have segments about sharing on Twitter.

Your Facebook account might be free, but as the marketing mantra says, if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product. Your page provides advertisers with the ultimate focus group to market products directly to you. Some people may admit they don’t mind when their info is used to tailor online advertisements to their interests. Saves them a bit of trouble. Which is thin-edge-of-the-wedge thinking.

As Prince Harry was again reminded last week, privacy is a fragile and easily compromised commodity. And, as we’ve seen from incidents like Vodafone’s security lapse last year, you can’t be sure the personal information you do provide will remain secure.

In a world where an increasing amount of our lives is lived and transacted online, we will conceivably get to a point where little of our personal lives remains hidden from advertisers, employers, creditors, governments. How would you feel about that?

As uncomfortable as that notion might be for most people, if you don’t see any adverse impact from that, will you care enough to do anything about it?

And if this is the world in which tomorrow’s generation is raised, where public and private is so easily melded, how much will they care? In future, will we become so blase that fewer voices will be raised against threats to privacy? It’s something to chew on.

Like frogs in a pot of water, we might not notice when it starts boiling.

Comments on this post will close at 8pm AEST

Most commented

35 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • M says:

      07:16am | 28/08/12

      If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about.

      Reply

    • TracyH says:

      07:43am | 28/08/12

      Being able to wear a diferent mask for the outside world was an option in our armoury. It’s not a matter of ‘doing nothing wrong’...just ‘doing something different’ will enable others to judge you according to their criteria, not yours.

    • Al says:

      08:00am | 28/08/12

      If you’ve done nothing wrong…..according to whom?
      Doing something ‘wrong’ doesn’t have to mean it is something illegal.
      So, is it if you have done nothing that you consider wrong then you have nothing to worry about or alternatively if you do something that anyone anywhere considers wrong then you do have something to worry about?
      I guess I better start worrying.

    • Wickerman says:

      08:08am | 28/08/12

      But they keep changing what is defined as wrong.

    • M says:

      08:14am | 28/08/12

      Why are you guys so worried about who’s tracking you?

    • Al says:

      08:35am | 28/08/12

      M - because the very basis of your argument is subjective, inconsistent and kind of sad that you believe it.
      You still haven’t answered me as to whose version of doing something wrong we should be worried about?
      How about the gossiping neighbour who thinks you might be having an affair (no proof though) or the minister of a local church of a faith belives you are evil and promotes this because you don’t believe in their religion?
      After all, according to these people you are doing wrong.

    • M says:

      09:00am | 28/08/12

      First of all, you shouldn’t be having affairs. Second of all, who cares what priests think?

      Anyone who has a problem with this is either up to something, thinking about being up to something, or has a family member who is up to something. If it provides law enforcement with the tools to do their jobs easier then I’m all for it.

    • Warren says:

      09:20am | 28/08/12

      Stasi philosophy in one.

    • Al says:

      09:32am | 28/08/12

      M - Do you think it should be fine for anyone to access any information about you that they desire.
      How about being rejected from a job simply because you were once a member of a church, but are not anymore, and the employer doesn’t like that church.
      Or having it widely distributed that you dance around naked in your house which causes you to loose your job as a senior lawyer.
      Or being rejected from a job because once 20 years ago you were caught J-walking and were fined.
      Or having someone taking photos of you on the toilet or having a shower without your permission whilst in your own home and uploading them to the internet.
      If all is being done as it should be then there is not a real issue. However humans will take advantage of almost any oppurtunity to make themselves appear better, or simply to put others down or cause trouble. Particularly when it is in circumstances that they are unlikely to ever be identified and they see it as ‘just a bit of fun’.

    • M says:

      10:06am | 28/08/12

      <M - Do you think it should be fine for anyone to access any information about you that they desire.>

      If it’s for a reasonable purpose, I think they should.

      <How about being rejected from a job simply because you were once a member of a church, but are not anymore, and the employer doesn’t like that church.>

      That’s discrimination. I wouldn’t want to work there anyway.

      <Or having it widely distributed that you dance around naked in your house which causes you to loose your job as a senior lawyer.>

      If I was a lawyer I could sue them for defamation.

      <Or being rejected from a job because once 20 years ago you were caught J-walking and were fined.>

      You break the law, you wear the consequences.

      <Or having someone taking photos of you on the toilet or having a shower without your permission whilst in your own home and uploading them to the internet.>

      They would be unfriended very quickly.

      <If all is being done as it should be then there is not a real issue. However humans will take advantage of almost any oppurtunity to make themselves appear better, or simply to put others down or cause trouble. Particularly when it is in circumstances that they are unlikely to ever be identified and they see it as ‘just a bit of fun’. >

      That’s why we have police but, to investigate when people do the wrong thing.

    • A Concerned Citizen says:

      10:40am | 28/08/12

      Ironically I would wager that most of the people that say “if you’ve done nothing wrong” are the first to cry foul when wikileaks did the exact same thing.
      Also ironic, is that less secrets by public institutions but more privacy for the public are what makes a better democracy.

    • Watch Out Reds Under the Bed says:

      10:49am | 28/08/12

      That naiveness of that, nothing wrong - nothing to worry about, comment is astounding (I assume the comment is good discussion bait though).

      So you read books that some supremacist terrorist also likes. You could be scooped up into the same algorithm that profiles you as one of them.

      Interested in a political idea that has become discredited. We will name and shame you.

      Follow a religion that has somewhere, deep in its doctrine, currently unpalatable ideas; these will be associated with you.

      Browsing and debating Punch pages like this could be the profile of a destabilising trouble maker.

      Watch out!
      :Your IP has been logged and stored indefinitely by some unaccountable quango for retrieval when suitably required for muckraking.

    • M says:

      11:16am | 28/08/12

      I use a foreign IP address and a TOR browser, they’ll never catch me.

    • nihonin says:

      12:56pm | 28/08/12

      M ’ If it provides law enforcement with the tools to do their jobs easier then I’m all for it.’

      Does that include busting people for selling and using drugs (oops sorry, I meant to add recreational)  wink

    • M says:

      01:34pm | 28/08/12

      Yes, anyone who uses drugs is a scourge on society. All drugs do is lead to muggings, prostitution, home invasions and general malaise. Polie should have every right to track these dregs of society and lock them up for life, no matter whether they’re unemployed, a tradie, a doctor or a judge. All of them are scum!

    • Ian1 says:

      07:30am | 28/08/12

      At no stage did I expect total privacy in any case, being accepting of faith.  Like others who are, we know our every action, thought and deed is to be made accountable for - and we are grateful.

      Privacy from the mortal thought processes of others whom I share the planet with, that would be nice.  Especially those who have not been spiritually circumcised, and remain bound to the flesh.  For they could only ever misinterpret what they discover about others, not understanding faith.  As they would apply their own reasoning and motivations to discern the meaning behind the actions, ever pitting themselves against a different order of genius all together.

      But yes, a world without stringent privacy laws, universally adopted and respected, is a frightening concept.

      Reply

    • Paleoflatus says:

      07:35am | 28/08/12

      How much privacy did we have a century or two ago, before increasing urbanisation leapt ahead of technology and gave us a century or so of anonymity? Today’s technology is simply redressing that balance.
      If you don’t want the reputation, don’t do it! It’s that simple.
      Don’t forget the value of transparency in maintaining (or creating) responsible government in a time of increasing oligarchy.

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      07:37am | 28/08/12

      Scratch a conservative and you will find a control freak !
      - If only they would use their evil genius for good instead of sneaky badness !
      Be afraid !  Be very afraid !

      Reply

    • jaki says:

      08:02am | 28/08/12

      Remind us again who it is that wants to control the media.

    • M says:

      08:17am | 28/08/12

      you can’t throw a tony abbott line out on that one acotrel .

    • AndyM says:

      08:18am | 28/08/12

      seriously? I’m not hearing the coalition bleating about the press being biased and needing to write less crap. I’d be more afraid of the state run NBN which will have the ability to filter and monitor our internet in a way that would have made the east german secret police envious.

    • Fiddler says:

      08:46am | 28/08/12

      pretty sure the conservatives don’t support things like internet filters, social engineering through pushing false versions of history through schools, want to introduce mandatory percentages for genders in company boards…. Do I even need to go on….

    • marley says:

      08:56am | 28/08/12

      @acotrel - go back and read the thread on free speech from the weekend.  It’s not the conservatives who want to restrict our right to express ourselves.

    • M says:

      09:13am | 28/08/12

      AndyM, it’s reletivly simple to get around both the filter and and mandatory storage of your internet histories by ISPs. Both measures will be little more than a huge waste of money.

    • Black Dynamite says:

      09:18am | 28/08/12

      Acotrel, troll smarter, not harder.

      BD

    • gary says:

      10:10am | 28/08/12

      jaki
      “Remind us again who it is that wants to control the media”
      Gina? Rupert?

      Fiddler
      “pushing false versions of history through schools”
      You do realise that creationists are conservatives right?

      marley
      “It’s not the conservatives who want to restrict our right to express ourselves”
      Quite right marley, It’s the conservatives who want the to permit media proprietors to print and say anything regardless of their veracity.

    • marley says:

      03:56pm | 28/08/12

      @Gary - look, we already know you’re not a proponent of free speech.  That’s fine.  Just stop labouring the point (if you’ll pardon the pun).

    • gary says:

      04:22pm | 28/08/12

      Sure thing marley
      You just admit your an apologist for Ltd. News and can’t tell the difference between facts and opinions

    • AndyM says:

      09:43am | 28/08/12

      M: what business is it of the government to be filtering the internet? This is the kind of thing that normally gets derided when the likes of China do it, but somehow when it is done by the Red Queen, it is to be lauded as a great leap forward?

      Reply

    • M says:

      10:10am | 28/08/12

      It’s absolutly none of their business, and despite my obvious trolling at the top of the page, I don’t agree with it one bit.

    • AdamC says:

      10:06am | 28/08/12

      Privacy is an interesting beast, and many people’s notion of what it means is changing. For example, from what I can gather, people used to divide the world into public and private spheres. For example, what you did in your own home was necessarily private, but what you did in the street was necessarily public. (Even then, notions of privacy were never universal. In Norway, for example, tax returns are public information.)

      The internet has changed this. People now seem to feel that their public errors should be able to be hidden from view. This is because, when some boozy misadventures can be photographed and exist for posterity online forever, ordinary people’s reputations are far more at risk than previously. In effect, the notion of privacy has shifted from a delineation of the world into public and private to a framwork in which ‘privacy’ laws are really there to protect people from themselves.

      Personally, though, I think that is unrealistic.

      Reply

    • Sheldon says:

      11:28am | 28/08/12

      “The internet has changed this. ...  the notion of privacy has shifted from a delineation of the world into public and private “

      Only if you’re in social media games and want to play along Adam.
      It’s not hard to maintain the traditional definition of private and public.
      All the younger generation needs is an Avatar in the world of social media and there is NO problem with privacy.

    • Audra Blue says:

      01:31pm | 28/08/12

      I’m not on Twitter or Facebook, so I think I’m fairly safe from prying eyes for the moment.  But if the govt want to spy on what kind of porn I look at, they only have themselves to blame.

      I had a date with a very nice gentleman recently who was massively into social media.  In particular, he was a Twitter freak.  When I looked into a possible future between us, all I could see was him tweeting:  “banged Audra last night - man that BJ was awesome!”  And I said, thanks but no thanks and never saw him again.

      Now, before you flame me for being shallow, there were other reasons why I knew it wouldn’t work between us, but the Twitter thing scared me the most.

      Reply

    • Bobby says:

      03:32pm | 28/08/12

      Why don’t we all just turn up to work naked tomorrow and get it over with.

      Reply

    • JamesH says:

      04:46pm | 28/08/12

      We already have a world where losers with nothing better to do can slag off on others online for having opinions or making one tiny factual error in a piece of writing.  They are largely anonymous.  People will still be able to hide behind the Internet.

      Reply
 
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