Privacy in the Digital Age: Welcome to the Parade

-- by LisaXia - 19 Feb 2016

Introduction:

You’ve heard it before. We are now all products of a system - a system which proclaims to be an expressive medium: one in which you can voice your thoughts and hear what others think, one in which you are free to explore and free to play...one in which you can expose all of your habits, your likes, your dislikes, and more...one in which you can give people information about yourself that you may not even have known about yourself so that those systems can use it for their own profit and benefit.

This system is the social network and the devices that are connected to it. They track our habits and our spending habits. They track our friends and our locations. They tell us, subliminally, how to act and how to think while keeping us submerged in an “illusion of group free will.” This type of system breeds conformity, squashes eccentricity, and creates a dichotomy between “us” and “them”. But worst of all, it creates a passive population. A population of people who don’t care who knows what about them. A population of people who are losing their right to privacy. A population of people who don’t even notice that this is happening - and if they do?

Oh well. We are a passive population anyways. Apathetic.

The Problem

As a part of that passive population, I have recently begun thinking about the issue of digital privacy. Yes, people are inherently social creatures, but people are also private creatures. Yet when we speak in the context of our digital lives, many of us think that it doesn’t matter — after all, who cares if I’m getting more targeted ads? Isn’t that actually better for me? I get exposed to new and interesting products that are in line with my interests. Why is this a bad thing?! I strangely don’t find it appalling that companies can profit off of my personal data. It almost seems intuitive to me — something that just happens. It’s not a big deal, I think. After all, I have nothing to hide. I’m not a “bad” person; I don’t do “bad” things. At the end of the day, wouldn’t I just fade into the background of any type of government surveillance program that might be keeping tabs? This kind of mindset is problem.

The Root of the Problem

Privacy is a fundamental human right, but why does it feel inconsequential? Maybe it is because the system advocates groupthink. By making “us” feel like a part of a larger group, are we more okay with the idea of being surveilled?

Social theorist Jeremy Bentham designed the concept of the Panopticon, which was later used by Foucault as a metaphor to advance the idea that a modern society no longer needs chains and other traditional forms of visible power to control a society. A panopticon works by pushing the idea that while an entire society cannot be monitored closely all at once, the idea that any individual could at any time be closely monitored would create enough of a social pressure to behave. I’ve heard arguments that extend this metaphor. That is, by compromising privacy for security, we are allowing ourselves to be subject to surveillance at any given time. The knowledge that we can be surveilled at any give moment causes us to squash our individuality and causes us to change the way we act and portray ourselves.

But I am not wholly convinced by the idea, and I believe a lot of my peers may feel similarly.

Is it then more helpful to view privacy as important to keep our information secure from the “bad” guys (aka, the people who want to use our information to do criminally bad things like steal our identity and credit card info, etc.)? I also do not feel like this would be the right approach to take to get people to care more about this issue. In terms using the idea of privacy as a security threat (not really speaking in terms of national security so much, but more individual security, if that makes sense) to make more people care about it also seems fruitless. Once again, we are caught the groupthink of “It won’t happen to me,” and thus, people still will not be moved to care…

What then would be the way to get this “passive population” to understand why digital privacy is important? Once the mainstream wants to advocate for it, what is next? What are the goals?

Conclusion [area for future solution when I figure out the answer to the questions?]

I want to fight for privacy, but I’m having trouble figuring out why it matters. I accept as true the idea that privacy is one of the most important basic rights, but find it really difficult to understand how my life is being affected right now as my “digital privacy” dwindles and as my online profile gets exploited over and over again. Is this group of passive people so entrenched in our current ways to change? Is the solution to learning to value privacy teaching our youth to value it? Maybe we need to start educating people about the importance of privacy from an early age. Maybe it’s time to emphasize the important of privacy in society today in schools at the same time as when they teach kids to value things like individuality, diversity, and hard work, etc...

Note

[Not part of Essay]
Privacy is an issue that I have recently found really fascinating to me. However, I am still relatively new to the topic, and don’t know too much about it. I wanted to write about it so that I could continue to explore it more in depth and then be accountable for articulating my thoughts and reflections on it rather than simply passively reading the information. I hope that by the third draft, I will have obtained some more insight on the matter, and that I can start understanding and defending what I believe to be fundamentally true.

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