The Future of Privacy

Centuries ago people made gold their most valuable asset. Even today, Worldwide Economy makes it the most durable of currencies. But that’s what it all is, a currency. Information on the other hand is the most valuable asset that people have today. I call this the Global Sharing Era.

People today don’t just exist as individuals, lawyers, teachers, doctors or economists but as real computers, connected with everybody else in the World. We already reached a point in our history and society were information does not only travel fast but travels free thru a website, an application or a mobile phone. GPS can tell you were you are, logs can tell you were you’ve been. But that information is not yours alone, it can be shared and it usually is, without you really being “bothered” of this fact. Just like that, a wide variety of people can see you sharing your everyday information, people like your brother or sister and also people like the FBI or other Government official from your country. Webcams can be activated from afar, your own microphone can be the best spy of them all. Even Facebook with its Timeline feature can give anyone a pretty good idea about your way or life or way of thinking. Websites and Blogs in particular can reveal the same thing.

Even the future superstars as they are called or the future public figure will have some skeletons in the closet of the Internet but that probably is one of the setbacks of new information and global sharing of one’s life details. This will probably change human behavior like never before seen. It could make people a lot less subtle, a lot more opened or most certainly both. This is just one of those information pockets that can scare you but in fact we are witnessing a new Philosophy and a new study of the Psychology of human beings. A new chapter is being written as we speak.

As long as the information is controlled and accessed by most people it’s not really an evil thing. We can see it as Evolution. People tend to anticipate horror but people from a few decades ago couldn’t anticipate this exact present so who knows what await us still? Today, to avoid being tracked in some way means that we have to be a little “oldschool” and avoid technology but as we progress we will surely find different ways to keep our privacy intact.

I was born in the Era of the Internet and I saw how long it took to become what it is today. We are just beginning to be paranoid but before this we found the new medium very useful. It brings people the quantity of information that has never before been available to the masses. For example, books or newspapers are not dead and they will probably won’t die in the near future yet still the internet gives you more books and more information in a much faster way. A lot of people don’t trust internet sources but they were actually written by the same fabric of people that wrote a lot of books long ago. We don’t need to ask ourselves if we should trust the internet but if we should trust people, because that’s where everything starts. If somebody scams you on this medium it does not mean the medium is faulty, it means that some people feel the need to be faulty for their own gain, just like they did everytime in History.

Privacy is indeed being tested more and more each day because of this Evolution phase but I think this is just a side effect of it. Information about information is a must for the modern man. Instead of being paranoid we can choose to be cautious. They say that nothing is free but in this situation this saying is a half-truth. By being cautious on the Internet and in the use of Modern Technology we can control our Privacy pretty well. I use the term “pretty well” not because I’m doubtful but because I don’t think that I or anyone else has the ability to see in the Future. All we can do is anticipate things as good as we can, be informed and find the brighter side of Technology.

In the end, it is a fact that we’re living a Global Sharing Era and is also a fact that this has helped a lot of people and that this has connected in a useful way a lot of cultures. In the face of this, all that remains is to put on our proper seat belt and enjoy the ride!