The Year of Being Watched

Privacy as of late has now exclusively meant consumer privacy; as if this is the only privacy out there or the only one that really mattered or the only one for many with a alarmingly shallow life style. My underwear brand, my fav ice cream flavor ? o really!

And one of the few productive things the fbi has ever done.

Well I guess there is always the slippery slope.

If you want to really get concerned read the Cisco Annual Security Report. I wrote an article about one part, yet the big news is how Gen Yers are willingly giving up privacy: 

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/vpndevc/annual_security_report.html

People are cognitively disfunctional about this topic--as they are about many others.  They don't care at all about their privacy, until it's embarrassingly compromised.  It's worth stopping and thinking about what you wouldn't want people to know.  I'm sure we all have something.

I believe that's where Kevin was coming from: We begin by answering innocuous questions about our favorite ice cream, which then devolves into the elimination of any privacy. And, as the nameless exec told him, some companies may even consider - semi-seriously or not - attaching tracking devices to employees or, at least, their vehicles or other work-related assets used, carried or driven by employees and, therefore, amounting to the same thing.

Is this because they've grown up with social media, email, etc., and live in this always-connected world, Michael, or is it just the typical mentality of that age, that living closer to the edge perception, that's being personified in this manner because of the age we're in?

I have opinions as to why. But, I do not feel qualified to offer an explanation. 

On a different note, my son is 26, but he has heard me harp about privacy and online security. And, he proofs my articles, so he is not a good indicator -- as he is extremely aware of his privacy, online security, and how to maintain both.

My daughter is 13 and we're trying to instill the same regard for privacy, etc., that you've done with your son. She wants to be a lawyer so we drum the fact that everything she posts online will be with her forever and could be used by her future clients' foes. She enjoys the TV show "Catfish," which we've actually used to underscore the fact that some folk lie online. And we regularly discuss some of the topics covered here on IE to some degree or another. It's a start!

Privacy rules have become a new type of power, or attempted power, anyway.

For example, my adult child's health issue will be private, but the hospital has no trouble finding me to pay the bill.

A lender somehow created a typo in the name of my account and I can't talk with them about the loan, even though a payment is automatically pulled from my checking account each month.

Voter data in our state (who voted, when, but not for whom) isn't public record for marketing companies, but it is for politicians, who, of course, market themselves.

New cars have data from a "black box," that can be retrived by law enforcement officials and insurance companies, but not the owner of the vehicle.

And these are top of mind examples.  I think our society generally understands that things are more intrusive, but less agreeable when there are restrictions placed on the data obtained.  Problem is, we become so used to the intrusion, we don't become aware of the restriction until the moment of truth occurs, and then we are ill-equipped to deal with it.

I agree with Kim in that privacy has long been a discussion item on these boards and very little in terms of protection has happened over the years.  I'm not sure what can change that.

It's certainly getting much harder to make growin-up mistakes in private.

You're right, Brian, that whenever people talk about individual items -- like the black boxes in cars or tracking of voting information (blows my mind!) -- there's some outrage, at least among a portion of society. And I don't know what we can do, either, because you really cannot unring a bell or 'disappear' mountains of data. 

It also appears to me (although this is totally unscientific) that this 'outrage' is decreasing as people get desensitized.