Public transport is boring. Nobody talks to anyone anymore. The only communication we do is through our smartphones. 

Hypothetically, A man is on the train, on the phone to his wife. He says “I’m down at the beachhouse for a few days”. The woman next to him then blurted out “No he’s not! He’s on the train from the city!”. The man is shocked, assuming it was a private conversation.

People assume that there is a notion of privacy, on trains for example. But there isn’t anymore. Take the most recent and well-known example, the leaked female celebrity photos. Their private images was sent to their personal digital storage device – their iCloud account. Fun fact; iCloud is actually a warehouse full of hard drives in Scandanavia. Anyway, these photos were created without the intention for public viewing. Hackers got into the system and put them onto the internet. Once they’re on the internet, in cyberspace, it’s almost impossible to remove them.

Even though some people still vote against social media, our identity  is something we create in the eyes of the world, made from countless comments, tags, status updates, photos, videos, and probably forgotten submitted forms. Now that I’m aware of the vast implications and ramifications of social media presence, I take great care in what I post online. A lot of people don’t release the effect of their online identity and can do serious damage to future possibilities, hindering job prospects for example. In extreme cases, where the online material is affecting a person’s life, they have the Right to be Forgotten. Cases are assessed on a case-by-case basis, and obviously, the right to get your data erased is not absolute and has clear limits.

The Right to be Forgotten is a right which is given to all citizens in the Eurpean Union, no matter what their nationality, subject to the clause’s conditions. The right has only ever been implemented once, despite Google grappling with 70,000 ‘right to be forgotten’ requests. It was by a Spanish citizen, who wanted the company to remove search links to an old local newspaper story related to his bankruptcy.

In France, archivists are trying to remove this right. They see state historical practice as higher importance to individual rights.

Privacy does still exist, but it’s sitting in your room behind closed curtains. The online multiverse does not take your privacy as its priority.

Well… That took a very different path that I expected to. The beauty of blogging; I can write my flow of thoughts without constrictions to a question of format.