The purpose of this posting is to explore our complicity in undermining our own privacy and freedom. Many people seem to pay no attention and give this their privacy without a second thought.

How do we make it easier for “Them” to track us and compromise our privacy, and therefore give up our freedom?

• We sign up for a frequent flyer card or preferred customer card even though it provides minimal benefit. We consent for detailed information on ourselves and our buying habits to be made commercially available.
• We give our name, address, phone number, and personal details for lottery tickets and surveys. We don’t have a decoy address to use to protect our privacy.
• We put up with companies that tell us that they “monitor all phone calls for quality monitoring purposes” and don’t ask them to stop that monitoring, even when given the option.
• We allow our phone number, name and address to be listed in public documents such as the white pages rather than pay a few dollars a month for a private number.
• We post our resume on the Internet where anyone can read our details.
• We post our email address on the Internet where anyone can obtain it, or link us to private comments that we have made.
• We give a commercial organisation our email address and private home phone number. This means that they can contact us at any time to bother us.
• We support release of details for those arrested, even before they are convicted – who cares about the idea “innocent until proven guilty” now?
• We like watching programs like “60 Minutes” who will invade the privacy of another person on the flimsiest pretexts (even if completely innocent) and subject them to harassment in the name of “investigative journalism”. Let’s hope that they don’t come after us!
• We support easy access to public information, such as marital status, children, address, bank records (until someone does the same search on us and starts stalking us).
• We live in fear based on biased and sensationalistic media reports, refusing to take responsibility for our own safety, then forgive all wrongs and excesses perpetuated by law enforcement, and willingly let them find out whatever they want about us.

Governments have always desired to control their citizens. Not only does the actual act of widespread surveillance help to consolidate the power of government, even the fact that citizens know that they may be observed at any time helps to keep them docile and easily cowed.Similarly, big business wants to maximise profits by obtaining more information on potential customers.

In both cases, privacy is something that is given up without thought. Sometimes, the effects are not immediate, but if we willingly surrender freedom for security, we eventually end up with neither freedom nor security.

Don’t wait until:

• a misguided police officer kicks in your door because they have mistakenly profiled you as someone who is wanted
• you have to deal with a stalker who has obtained every detail on your life
• an identity thief undermines your financial standing by taking over your life
• strangers start rummaging through your discarded medical records

before you start taking your privacy seriously.If you don’t want your own privacy to be nothing but a fond memory, manage it carefully. Start to do some things to protect your own privacy. I recommend that you read “How to be Invisible” by JJ Luna.

Tags: Privacy

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.