I'm a big proponent of Privacy and yet at the same time I am posting all kinds of information about myself on the web. I have a few web pages on the go and I have this blog.
On the Internet there are a ton of pictures of me and of the things I have, people know where I live and what my interests are. And yet I am still concerned about privacy.
It's a paradox that a lot of us should be concerned with, given the growth of Identity Theft in recent years.
I disagree with the installation of surveillance cameras on every city block and intersection. And yet I agree that it tends to curtail crime, or at least move it away from the camera's view.
How much privacy are we going to give up for the sake of security? Already in the US and in Great Britain, Civil Rights have been compromised in the so called "Fight Against Terrorism". Is "Terrorism" a government plot to gain control of our private lives?
There is the age old argument that "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". I would say, if you have nothing to hide that you are a very dull and boring individual.
We all have something to hide. Our bank accounts, our lifestyle habits, and what we choose do do with our bodies. We hide them because they are ours, they belong to us and if you want to know about it, you should ask permission.
The Lawmakers and the Corporations, if we let them, will circumvent this permission if they can. Information is knowledge and knowledge is the key to control and ultimately that is what "they" are after.
Maybe it doesn't matter if our privacy is exposed. Maybe we will learn a lot more about each other if there are less secrets and a more Open Society.
Still, a person should have a choice in the matter.
I'm in favour of having voluntary memory chips implanted under our skin, somewhere on our bodies. This chip would have all the information we would choose to store on it.
And we would choose what information we would allow be accessed. It would have credit card numbers, license numbers, passport numbers, our birth certificate, etc. It would have everything that we would need to establish our identity, that we are who we say we are.
Technology can steal our privacy but it can also insure it.
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