Fundamental human right
With my ultimate experience of freedom still fresh in my memory, the question continues to occupy me after that broadcast. Being alone is crucial to determining who you are and who you want to be. That is why privacy is a fundamental human right. But today's children are growing up without any sense of privacy. They will soon not know what it is to be unobserved, without recorded and analyzed thoughts. Can we still stay somewhere unhindered, alone, in our own circle or with a partner and isolate ourselves completely without having to go to a desert island?
Big data are following me
It's not that bad, I thought for a long time. But when I start to realize how much data Facebook and Google have on me, it starts to feel a bit uncomfortable. Google knows my surfing and search behavior, knows where I am (I have an Android phone) and who I email about what. Google knows which videos I watch.
Breathing
Google recently bought smart thermostat maker Nest Labs. If I install Nest at home, Google will also know when I turn on the washing machine, when I am home or not. If Google later buys a company like Sleep Number , a maker of smart beds, they will also know how long I sleep, how much I move, how I breathe and how my heart beats. And maybe even what I dream?
Create a complete profile
With all that data, a single company can create a complete profile of my behavior. What would happen with all that information? My 'big data' can be sold and used to tailor and customize commercial messages. But besides advertising, predictions about our lives are also possible. Facebook showed with their Valentine's Day campaign that it can predict with great precision how long your relationship will last.
Conference room
Photo: ©gewitterkind – Fotolia.com
Insurance companies
Will Facebook soon calculate with the same accuracy how big the risk is that I will have an accident? How big the chance is that I will live to be over 80 years old? After the acquisition of WhatsApp, they will also know who I have contact with and when and how that differs from the contact within Facebook. What if Facebook sells data to insurance companies? Is that allowed? The more I delve into it, the more it becomes clear to me: no, it is not easy at all!
We are the product
All the data I gave to Silicon Valley in exchange for convenience over the last few years could one day be used against me. Do we all actually know how high the price is that we pay in the long run for using these services? Google, Facebook, Twitter: it's not free. We are the product, our lives the currency.
So data is worth a lot. It is not without reason that the tech giants invest heavily bangladesh mobile phone number list in security to arm themselves against hackers. But, after Edward Snowden woke the world up in June 2013 with evidence of the spying activities of the National Security Agency (NSA), Silicon Valley is now wondering whether they should focus on criminals or their own government when securing their data. On March 13, I found a status update by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg , in which he makes a critical appeal to the American government to be more transparent about what they do, because otherwise people will start to believe the worst things. Even Angela Merkel's phone has been hacked.
Balance between privacy & security
In short, our data is – voluntarily or not – not only available in Silicon Valley in exchange for convenience, but also accessible to the intelligence services. And there a parallel discussion opens up with privacy as a pivot point. This is about the balance between privacy & security. This discussion gained momentum in the past month. Edward Snowden spoke via video connection at the SXSW festival in Texas in early March and on Tuesday 18 March he was a speaker at the thirtieth TED conference in Vancouver via a telepresence robot. Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the Internet) jumped on stage after the interview, gave Snowden a virtual high-five and called him a hero.