| I'm not sure it's as much hyperbole as you think. One of the statements by Ebon Moglen's recent talk that stayed with me is something like "In every country where people spend a long time online, Google already knows how you're going to vote." Imagine the sort of things the government could get by mashing together our electronic signals, all of which you might want to keep private: 1. Who you will most likely vote for 2. Where you have been at all times. 3 Who you spoke to on the phone, text message and bulletin boards. 4. Your sexual orientation, shared trauma, or mental problems. 5. Your sexual kinks and porn preferences. 6. Your religion. 7. Your medical history (and from 23andMe, your DNA) 8. What films you watch, music you like and books you read (and from ebooks, for how long you spent doing so). 9. Who you met physically (if both are carrying tracking phones). 10. Everything you bought via paypal, credit cards or bank transactions. 11. Your credit history, savings history and financial proclivities. 12. Your possessions that are recorded, such as houses, cars. 13. Every country you visit abroad. Every plane ticket and use of your passport (including photo and fingerprints). 14. Your complete criminal record. 15. And already coming to the youth of today: cheaper insurance via car tracking = how you drive, how fast, cornering speed, where you go and where you stay. 16. Your genealogical data if given to any family tree site. 17. The names and all the data above for your friends and family, their friends, and so on, in a great big network. Is that a loss of privacy? I'd say so. It's a huge amount of data they have access to if unrestrained: all your opinions on bulletin boards, web searches, sites visited, physical locations visited, friend networks, phone conversations, face on cameras and photos via recognition, Medical records, library records, travel records, TV records, financial records, email, photographs, videos - and in future people will be using the internet and things like smart phones more, not less. And of course this isn't even including the more extreme stuff they can do but probably only do rarely, such as watching you through your smart TV, computer or phone, listening to everything you say through your phone even when it isn't on, etc. Heck, even searching google for types of recipe you enjoy might reveal you're Jewish when cross-referenced with things like friend networks and location. From an EU data protection (and last century's history) point of view, there is a lot to be concerned about. |