Everybody’s notions of privacy has changed as the years go by, as they grow older and most importantly, as society changes. Privacy does not have the same meaning now as it did in let’s say, 2005. The main thing that comes to mind for me is how people used Facebook when it first became a “thing”.
I remember constantly talking to my friends through “wall-posts”; posting messages to them on their public wall where everyone can see and sometimes even sending them details on an upcoming event (“meet you tomorrow at 10:00am, Flinders Street”) for all their friends, my friends and whoever else to know. It’s ridiculous to think about that now because all communication is “private” nowadays, with people keeping in contact through private chats, texts and phone calls. You choose who you want your information to go to.
Is privacy a right or a responsibility?
I believe that privacy is both a right and a responsibility.
For example, one’s privacy rights can disappear once they have done something illegal and investigations are necessary. Yet it is also a responsibility because it is up to you what kind of information you give out.
(You cannot passively assume that everybody will respect your data)
Onto the topic of not assuming everybody will respect your data, data brokerage is something I learnt about the other day in my ‘New Media, New Asia’ class. I know it’s been happening but had never heard the term before. Data brokerage, “in the name of commerce” is the act of websites collecting our personal information in order to sell them to different companies (often without our knowledge).
This information is used by companies to, mainly, try and sell us things.
I’ve thought about this many times in my life when I’m on YouTube or Facebook or even Urban Outfitters, and I see an advertisement for something that I may have searched a couple of times in the past days. The first question to pop into my mind is: “how did they know”. It’s like Big Brother…
And now back to what I’ve mentioned earlier about privacy, it is because people have become habituated to certain websites and aren’t as careful with their information anymore. You think that what you do on a certain website stays on that certain website and suddenly disappears the second you cross the window, but it doesn’t.
Everybody has a digital footprint.
Now to conclude my longest blog post up to date, here is an article about something I saw on the news the other day, where people have found a way to download their entire Google history. Is that scary for you? Interesting? Funny? Curious? Nervous? Well it depends on what you’ve been Googling…
