Clunky Flow

Yesterday, no less than the Information Commission in the UK warned that Britons now live in a ’surveillance society’ where their personal data is routinely gathered and shared without their knowledge. 

Apparently, personal data from medical records is being combined with data from store loyalty cards for sale and exchange.  In fact, this is occuring to such a degree that data sharing of this kind has become the default action of official agencies and businesses.

Were you aware of this? I certainly wasn’t. 

 

Nevermind though as experts have pointed to the ‘worrying fact’ that much of this sharing has been occuring under the cover of ‘alarming secrecy’, particularly with respect to the information held by companies and with whom they share it.

This information was reported on yesterday in the Financial Times.  And their internet traffic data shows that this was yesterday’s most read article. Today, they led their Editorial on this issue and argued that the wholesale sharing of data would not be tolerated if the public was aware of the scale of data-sharing that can be done without individual consent.

I’m not so sure. Rightly or wrongly, in much the same way as many people don’t care much about exercising their personal right to vote, I don’t think that many people care about protecting their personal right to privacy.

 

To find people exercised about their right to vote and right to privacy you’d have to visit the former Eastern Bloc countries and talk to those that didn’t thrive in those regimes. 

During the Cold War, East Germany built a hugely expensive and ornate apparatus just for the purpose of tracing, storing, and analyzing personal data on all its citizens.  One can see the attraction of such an apparatus for those in power.  It’s deadly seductive. I imagine that those in power believe that such information would help them to achieve fantastic efficiencies within their organisations.

This begs the question: Why is it that states that don’t observe the sanctity of personal privacy are less economically powerful than those that do? 

I don’t know… it would be tempting to think that the cost of building and maintaining such systems might have something to do with it?  Although, I don’t think that’s the real reason, it may be interesting to run with that idea for a moment.

Scenario 1: If this were true that the cost of building and maintaining information gathering systems caused net economic inefficiency of totalitarian regimes, it would follow that great efficiencies could be achieved if only the information needed could be collected and collated cheaply.

To an individual, organisation or government seduced by such a notion, the widespread adoption and usage of the internet is something of a gift from above. 

With the Internet to simplify the task of data retention corporations and government could specialize in the capturing and interpretation of personal information without needing to employ any of the tactics characteristic of totalitarian regimes.

All they need do is reassure their citizenry/users by way of public discourse that

• the capturing and interpretation of such data will only be used for the common good and the benefit of all, and that any loss of privacy by the individual is a small price in exchange for the overall common good. 
• anyone raising concerns over their personal privacy should perhaps reconsider their concerns and think of the overall benefits for the groups.
• anyone who makes a big issue of such a small concern should be asked “Do you have something to hide?” “Do they want to protect those that would attack the state”

You know, a simple informational campaign for the public, that would in no way drift toward those used by totalitarian regimes.

Scenario 2: If it were false that the cost of building and maintaining information gathering systems caused net economic inefficiency of totalitarian regimes, then we’d need some other explanation for the net inefficiency of economies that don’t observe the sanctity of personal privacy.

My guess is that a sense of reduced privacy dampens individual expression, creativity and alternative with significant knock-on effects for the society as a whole.

If this is true, then not only is privacy not a crime but the defense of right to privacy for and by the individual who themselves have nothing to hide is a signficant contribution to the benefit of the society as a whole.

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