A Day In the Life of Privacy

wiredmikey writes "Here's an interesting read on the state of privacy and how technology, along with government and social media have changed the idea, and reality of privacy forever. The article takes the reader through a typical day, and highlights many of the privacy issues that we face, from our mobile phones, Internet at local coffee shops, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, all the way down to cars equipped with OnStar, public cameras, facial recognition technology and more. The author concludes everyday we make compromises in the face of Privacy, and none of us will ever have as much privacy as we want."

Comments

social network == telecom operation

[StripedCow]

If social networks would just fall under the same laws as telecom companies, then those companies would simply be prohibited to inspect the messages that their users send around (even if their services are "free", and even if those messages are intended for a group of people instead of just one person a time).

Why aren't we just approaching the problem from this angle?

Re:social network == telecom operation

[Yaur]

Because telecom forms natural monopolies that require regulation and social networks offer services that you can choose not to use and thus require less regulation. The real problem is that not enough people care about privacy for an alternative with strong privacy protection (which would likely be a paid service) to be a viable business.

Re:social network == telecom operation

[Anonymous Coward]

Social networks may not have high capital costs, but the barriers to entry are practically insurmountable because of the demand-side economies of scale.
Monopoly or not, it's clear facebook are not under enough competitive pressure and need to have the shit regulated out them. At least my phone interoperates with every other phone on the planet. Would be nice if social networks did the same.

Giving it away

[DogDude]

"My point is that everyday, all day, we make compromises in the face of privacy, and that, in reality, probably none of us have as much privacy as we want."

Speak for yourself. I have a satisfying, fulfilling life without giving away my privacy for no apparent reason. The author chooses to make those compromises. Not everybody needs a MegaPixel2000AndroidiPhone. Not everybody feels the need to announce their current location to the world. Not everybody chooses to contribute to the banks by using credit for trivial purchases. The guy's just another lemming.

Re:How much privacy do we want?

[moj0joj0]

So, really, what bad thing will happen?

I once had very similar feelings about this issue.

Nothing bad will happen, until it does. When the information is used and a horrible thing occurs, you'll kick yourself for not protecting your loved ones. It has happened to me and it will happen to many others.

In my own experience, it wasn't "Big Brother" - it was a tech-savvy business partner and I spent half a year in jail, accused of a "capital" crime I didn't commit - then 4 years and ten's of thousands of dollars fighting for my freedom in courts. My "friend" got me out of the business, which is still a large and profitable company today.

Hey, walking around with on all fours with no pants and your ass in the air seems to be the cool thing these days. So, have fun. Just don't cry when you get raped.

Me, I'll try to keep my pants (mostly) on.

What bad things can happen? Here are some...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

So, really, what bad thing will happen?

Well, off the top of my head, when we reach the point that any commercial, professional or government contact you have can effectively dig up as much dirt on you as they feel like from any source they can find:

• You will be unable to obtain insurance, or unable to obtain it at a reasonable price, because you fit some negative profile. In some cases, this will be unfairly expensive. In others, it will stop you performing daily activities such as driving where insurance is required by law. In others, it will literally hurt or kill you, because essential medical work will not be available to you.
• You will be unable to obtain employment, or will only be able to obtain jobs that are not as good or under less favourable conditions. Sure, everyone has skeletons in the closet and corporate HR drones should realise that. Sure, there are laws protecting employees against unfair discrimination on various grounds. But these simply don't work. Men and women do not hold similar numbers of board positions at major companies or average the same salary for doing the same job. The US made a huge thing because it has a black president for the first time in a few centuries. Networking is already used (reasonably enough) to fill important jobs, but shows how easy it is for personal views to influence such decisions, which is a dangerous situation in a much more incomplete-data-driven recruitment culture.
• Your quality of life will suffer because of the increasing numbers of unwanted distractions by advertisers, pollsters, political campaigners, etc. This already happens, of course, and we have things like anti-spam laws and opt-out lists for telesales calls and junk mail. But again, I refer you to the collective harassment that telemarketers continue to impose even on those who have actively opted out of everything they can as evidence of how utterly futile such measures are if you let the data out in the first place. This situation will only get worse until someone makes a serious political/legal attempt to change the entire culture, which seems unlikely in the immediate future given how many politicians and lawyers make an awful lot of money from businesses with at best shady advertising practices.
• Your freedom will suffer if a government body with statutory powers decides to act against you because you appear to be someone like they don't like. This obviously has implications for law enforcement and security services, particularly in a future where perhaps the government and its henchmen are not themselves quite as ethical about crushing political opposition as you might like. But that's not the only problem: something as simple as being flagged up as a risk by your tax authorities (even if you've actually done everything correctly) can lead to months of wasted time and money clearing your name, denial of essential benefits at a time in your life when you rely on them for everyday needs, etc.

So sure, maybe you don't mind a bit of junk mail. You'll be fine as long as you also don't mind crazy people turning up on your door step several times per month asking you to sign up to their political party/donate to their charity/buy their dubiously sourced goods, tax inspectors inviting themselves into your life for six months and wasting dozens or hundreds of hours of your free time to comply with their demands, though at least you'll have a lot more free time in future because you won't be able to get a full-time job as a tax evasion suspect anyway, and even if you did you wouldn't be able to get paid because no bank will give you an account without a credit rating, which you no longer have, even if that account offers no loan or credit facilities anyway, and you can't complain because no phone company will let you sign up for a calling plan without a credit check and photo ID, which in turn you can't get because you couldn't afford the statutory motor insurance after three of your friends got DUI'd last year and so when go