This is the new reality

When you demand privacy from people in your life, you are immediately treated with suspicion.  What have you got to hide?  Why are you hiding it?  You must be up to no good!

When you demand privacy from the government, they tell you its for your own good.  Giving up privacy means being a good citizen and increasing security.

When you demand privacy from your smarthphone, you are told that they collect data on you to give you a better service.  Don’t you want to be able to find your phone when you lost it?  Don’t you want to get an Internet specifically tailored for you?

When you demand privacy from social media, you are invariably told that you basically have none.  The data behind your posts, including your pictures and stories and videos belong at least as much to them as to you.  Just be satisfied that the product is free.

Generational Privacy

It is inconceivable to the new generation that they would not be connected.  It is actually tied to existence for some of them.  I spoke to a teenager recently, where I pointed out that we had no smartphones.  After a muted confused pause, she said “there was nothing for you to do”.  I guess she was trying to imagine her world with no smartphone.  She must have imagine that those of us who grew up without smartphones were just sitting around starting at walls waiting for the smartphone to be invented!

The danger with this insidious erosion of our privacy is that the concept of being monitored, recorded for eternity, and the total loss of privacy is not even questioned.  Many young people probably do not realize that they are the product, that there are being monetized, and that governments are “protecting” them through constant monitoring.

For those of us who grew up without invasive technology, our privacy is progressively and invisibly being eroded.  The convenience of the services we receive and the product that are sold to use that we did not know we want is intoxicating.  We grew up taking our privacy for granted, and do not give its slow disappearance much thought.  The infinite scroll is too intoxicating,

Historical vs Present Surveillance

In authoritarian regimes, a common tactic is to have neighbours spy on each other all the time.  The government can then swoop in and take that person out.  Everybody had to watch what they say, lest a neighbour snitch on them and get recompense. Surveillance was understood, limited, and people could properly guard against it.

In today’s world, our thoughts and public proclamations are poured in digital concrete and accessible on many levels.  How many public figures have been brought down by some stupid thing they said or did years ago?  The authoritarian regime has been replaced with social justice warriors.  Shame, humiliation and public outcry serve to condemn and convict people much faster than any authoritarian regime.  One new authorities are self-proclaimed warriors of righteousness, their zealotry fully justified by their moral superiority.

Technology is gathering data points at unprecedented scales.  Cell Phone Towers report your locations all day long; you may thing your cell phone is off when it really isn’t.  Your microphones are listening on your phone, television, computer, and Alexa/Siri and Hey Google.  Your email, social media, and this blog is being monitored continuously.  If you think you can escape, perhaps your should follow Thoreau’s example and take yourself off the grid.  The reality is that for most of us it is inevitable.

We are now being monitored all the time, everywhere and automatically.  Big Brother is watching you closely.  Big Brother is the government, corporations, technology and social media vigilantes who trade your data like playing cards.  The economy must grow and we have become the product.

In this world of being monitored, none of us experience the Internet in the same way.  Social media pushes “personalized feeds” to each of us.  These feeds can be paid for by hostile entities, and can take advantage of our psychological profiles.  The data that we provide to Big Brother is being used in a massive feedback loop that slowly modifies what we want and what we do.

Why “The Man” Wants Your Data

So we become the product.  Governments want us to behave a certain way, and they are pushed by corporations whose sole motivation is profit.  The entire engine is fed by data, which we freely give up.  At the moment, there are very little checks and balances.  We do not know where this will all lead.  It will indeed be a Brave New World where Huxley warns of people created a certain way, programmed from birth.  But Huxley’s vision is being bootstrapped by Orwell’s vision of Big Brother, where the slow erosion of our privacy eventually leads to total control from birth to grave.

By letting them watch us, we let them change us until we exist to serve them.

I know I am on a diatribe, and here is where I slow down.  I am at risk of sounding like a Conspiracy Theorist, wearing a tin foil hat.  I do not want to sound like a crackpot nor a dooms day advocate.  I’m not even sure why I wrote this diatribe, except it has all been on my mind for some time.  I just want people to be aware.

Summary

Data Collection

1. Your Electronics are collecting data on you. Smartphones, tv’s, computers, cars, etc.
2. Your Social media is collecting data on you.  Facebook, instagram, snapchat, Pinterest, etc.
3. Your government Is collecting data on you.  Taxes, covert surveillance, police state, deep state, transportation.

Data History

1. Your data history is permanent.  If you did it, it is recorded and held forever, and can come out later.
2. Your data is being mined.  People are working for your attention and your data.
3. Your data will be mined later.  Artificial Intelligence will draw relationships in ways we cannot predict on your data that can be used to monetize you or subjugate you.

Data Uses

1. Governments use the data to subjugate you.
2. Corporations use the data to monetize you.
3. Social Media uses the data to change you.

Where is it all Going?

1. Data is Collected.
2. Data is Analyzed.
3. Data is Used to Monetize/Control/Change You.
4. Dystopian society awaits.

What you can do

1. Be aware of items that are collecting data.
2. Be vigilant about who you give data too.
3. Learn and employ tactics that limit the amount of data given away.
4. Vote accordingly.  Support democratic movements that protect privacy.

Conclusion

This post is meant to raise awareness and stimulate thought on our eroding privacy as we run through our busy lives.  There are some very tactical actions that can be taken, but that is a whole other article.

I hope this has triggered some thoughts, and I look forward to your feedback!