Privacy

PRIVACY

George Orwell in his futuristic treatise ‘1984’ has strewn many a pearl of wisdom, which then appeared as pebbles. These pebbles have over the past decades started shining through as the pearls they are. His most famous statement “Big Brother is Watching You” is not just a warning for us today because the  big brother is not just watching he is also directing and controlling us and ours.

The voyeuristic tendencies, inherent to human kind, has started to bite where it hurts. It was fine as long as the rich and famous had their dirty linen washed in the yellow broadsheets. Reading these behind the doors stories titillated one and all. Now when our own privacy is compromised, the shoe is biting.

I remember the short one-liners that used to be in the office emails, which used to be the official privacy policy of the organization. Most used to go as “if you are not the intended recipient of this email, kindly delete this mail” OR “If you are not the intended recipient of this mail, then please mail to  xyz@abc.com” and various other versions of this. How idealistic and naïve the world was then. How different it is now in this age of virtual life.

We take pride now in putting on the virtual platter pictures of everything that we eat, places we visit, people we meet up, clothes that we buy, at times clothes that we do not buy and similar other innocuous events and articles. Then we keep tabs of how well or poorly our virtual platters are being viewed and liked.

In the good old days, we double checked the locks at home, patted the pocket to see if the wallet was still there, gummed the envelopes, filed away receipts and bills and listened to our mother’s advice – ‘don’t talk to strangers’. Today when the hard checks have become soft ones in our lives, are we less careful? We do not think twice before filling up a raffle form or a feedback form at the Mall with personal details. Click and collect is becoming the norm and the credit card information is provided to any and every merchant. We accept friend requests from these virtual strangers with whom we share our life stories. Orwell also said, “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself”, this is all the truer now.

All our life we have been told to avoid dark alleys and lonely places, yet we have no qualms in getting into shady virtual places and registering our personal details to leave an indelible impression. While we unhesitatingly provide personal details, we cry foul when we are told about the ‘leaks’. This raises the question of responsibility. Who is more irresponsible the individual who shared privacy data or the custodian of such data? A debatable point, perhaps both are equally to blame. The custodians vouchsafe themselves with reams of small print as an agreement with the individual, who being a very agreeable person never reads the fine print but agrees to everything! Can we not have a standard, generic and authorized ‘non-disclosure agreement’ to be used by all.

And now we have GDPR. In simple terms, GDPR  is a data protection law that governs how websites store and retain the personal data of EU citizens. The simplicity ends there. Start reading the fine print and you realise that this ‘beast’ has stealthily slipped in. While it had been maturing during the past few years, it did not get the attention that it deserves. Now suddenly it is in our face. For the non-EU citizens, the GDPR impact has been in the form of an avalanche of emails from various virtual worlds where one registered and forgot. These sites are now writing to tell all that they are GDPR compliant and their policy is updated, they are now more transparent about how they store or use personal data.

It was shocking as well as a rude wake-up call when I saw the GDPR compliant mail from an astrology site that I used eons ago. While I had forgotten about them, they still remembered me. I then chose the next best option of unsubscribing. But it was not that easy. I had to browse through three more pages and leave some more information before I could unsubscribe. Did I really unsubscribe? Time alone will answer this question.

So how does one maintain ‘privacy’ in this binary world? Having a non-digital existence is the safest route but probably impossible in this age. Awareness is key to protecting one’s privacy. “Words once said can never be taken back “ is now “key-clicks that you make cannot be un-clicked”. So, before every click one needs to exercise the due diligence required. Go minimal is the best advice under current circumstances. Where one can browse around as a guest, it is preferable to be one.  Before divulging any personal information on the virtual media, it would be prudent to ask oneself the following questions:

• 1.       Why do they (the website/service provider) need this information?
• 2.       Can this information be miss-used?
• 3.       Is this information being held securely?
• 4.    Finally, it is good to remember that one’s personal information, photos, passwords etc., are personal and more than anyone else the individual is responsible for its safekeep.

If one is convinced with the answers to the above then one can go ahead with providing information.