Ah Privacy we hardly knew you

In an age of MySpace, Facebook, and the way that user generated content is used to determine the character of people for hiring, bloggers who are fired, social workers using the internet to check on the mental status of their patients, as well as the whole host of other ways that data we generate is used from targeted advertising. From coupons sent in the mail based on our shopping at a grocery store, is it then any real surprise that the US Government is saying that privacy has to be re-evaluated once again.

We are a society that is seriously thinking that people are willing to give up their anonymity when it comes to the technology that we are using on a day to day basis. In some ways we are doing well, credit card transactions are for the most part not used for marketing purposes except in a generalized context. However, we have also seen where technology can be and is used to track and trace the things we buy, and used to try to sell us more stuff.

We also know that some people when they get their hands on the internet will say some of the most horrific things that we can think of, silencing voices like Kathy Sierra, and others because someone thinks it is funny. The interesting part of this one is that the government in an effort to find terrorists have taken the bolder step of saying that privacy can no longer mean anonymity, and that is where the whole problem starts.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information. Kerr’s comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Source: Yahoo.com

While the idea is nothing new, technology makes so much of this easier, from finding people who have gotten lost in the woods by cell phone beaconing, to finding people who are making death threats and bomb threats against schools. Technology has some valid functional uses where you can be tracked across the internet.

The problem is when the data that we generate is used against us, or used to deny us health care, social care, or we engage in activities that our neighbors might not be all that cool with. The loss of social stature or reputation is just one of the things that the loss of priacy is going to entail.

We have made so many laws and rules, like the EU’s stance against astroturfing, the way that social networks have to be careful to protect their customers against predators, including the people who are misidentified, that we stand on Occam’s razor at this point. Where the idea that everyone should self identify, and that everyone should be known for who they are, will make it much more important then for people to be extra careful that they use the internet wisely.

By wisely we think that people are going to loose some things that they do need to have to be safe. Things like being able to talk about the government and things you do not agree with, whistle blowers, protected speech, and the right to be kinky in life without being looked down upon. When anonymity goes away, these things come out, and we are judged by our society in ways that are going to be unexpected. Beyond searching for terrorists, are we really prepared to find out everything about our neighbors, friends and family, even those things they want to keep private.