What Privacy?

The revelation of the PRISM program over the past few weeks brings into question this entire notion of having the right to privacy. It also brings into question the extent to which we have, by our actions and behaviours, given up that right anyway. What do I mean by that? Well consider that the chances are that you, yes you, have never once read one of those legal statements that comes up when signing up for an email or social media account. If you are like me you click "Yes I agree" without so much as scrolling down. When taken together with the amount of openness we display on the various social media services i.e. liking, commenting on the posts of others, posting our own comments and rants, uploading pictures of ourselves and others etc, it is clear to see that we aren't so much concerned with privacy per se. Instead it seems we are concerned with people and organisations accessing our already public information which we voluntarily shared from the sites and apps we've shared them through.

This is an interesting dilemma because I didn't read the user agreement, remember I just clicked the "Yes I agree" button without reading it, so I have no way of knowing if I agreed to my information being passed to third parties, well, unless I go read them all now anyway. As the tech companies try to make sense of what is happening, it is not yet certain how this will change how much we share about ourselves voluntarily and how we would alter how we use the internet to transmit messages and transact. It presents a dilemma for social networks and email providers though as they would fear the fallout of losing their user base due to a loss of trust in them. One thing is for sure now. They will change the user agreements to ensure that they are not exposed legally, we will not read them when they pop up, and we will live happily ever after. Until we find ourselves being interrogated because of comments made online or because of a picture or video shared on instagram.

Web 2.0 has brought with it some new dilemmas and is pushing the boundaries of the definition of what is private and public. It is now very conceivable that one day everything will become public and open. Accept it and be responsible with the information you share. Orwell's Big Brother has arrived I guess.