Secrets are real (and hard to keep), but privacy is just the politeness of your neighbours.
We should never confuse the two - people seem to think that a right to privacy means a right to secrecy. It does not and never can. People have behaved badly enough with so called online anonymity.
We will have our entire lives stripped bare and laid out on a digital plate - this will enable an incredible outpouring of new lessons, psychological, criminal, mental health and happiness - if we treat it right. If we give individuals control over who can use their information, if we ensure PII is treated like a lawyer treats their clients confessions, that epidemiology can get what advertisers never can, we shall find that it’s not “no-one can ever know” but “health researchers can know, but I would rather my employer does not and I hope my friends understand”
We spend 20 years training children as to what is and is not acceptable in polite society - and it’s going to take a generation to figure this new set of etiquette out - but I am betting the juice is worth the squeeze
Edit: in short, it’s not the data that’s collected, it’s who uses it and how. Focus on that.
We should never confuse the two - people seem to think that a right to privacy means a right to secrecy. It does not and never can. People have behaved badly enough with so called online anonymity.
We will have our entire lives stripped bare and laid out on a digital plate - this will enable an incredible outpouring of new lessons, psychological, criminal, mental health and happiness - if we treat it right. If we give individuals control over who can use their information, if we ensure PII is treated like a lawyer treats their clients confessions, that epidemiology can get what advertisers never can, we shall find that it’s not “no-one can ever know” but “health researchers can know, but I would rather my employer does not and I hope my friends understand”
We spend 20 years training children as to what is and is not acceptable in polite society - and it’s going to take a generation to figure this new set of etiquette out - but I am betting the juice is worth the squeeze
Edit: in short, it’s not the data that’s collected, it’s who uses it and how. Focus on that.