Our message of simple common sense
Conspiracy-minded people have long claimed that we are all controlled by governments. Personally, I have always dismissed these theories as exaggerated and unrealistic. Today, however, in the age of information and digital technology, data truly is power.
That power is real, and today it lies in the hands of both governments and multinational corporations. In many cases, those corporations are beginning to hold even more of it.
That is why the title of this article is simple: We need privacy.
Let us think about an ordinary working day. We wake up and turn off the alarm on our smartphone. Before we are even fully awake, we check our emails, unread WhatsApp messages, and the many social networks we belong to. Then we get up and begin the day.
As the day goes on, our smartphone connects to various Wi-Fi networks, the Bluetooth system in our car, and countless other devices: sensors, public infrastructure, smart systems, and digital services. Eventually, we arrive at the office and connect to the company Wi-Fi as well.
And that is not all. During the journey, we often fill social networks with new content that reveals our location, our habits, samples of our voice, our face, what we do, what we think, who we like, who we dislike, our opinions, our preferences, our photos, and more.
In doing so, we continuously enrich a huge collection of personal information that ends up directly in the hands of large companies. Anyone with even basic knowledge of psychology, marketing, or profiling can use that data to build an increasingly detailed picture of who we are.
After work, we open a navigation app to reach a place we like. We take photos of our food, post reviews of the restaurant and the dishes we tried, and for much of the evening we end up using our smartphones instead of truly talking to the people sitting in front of us. More than once, we drift away from the real moment just to smile at something on our timeline.
Week after week, month after month, year after year, we voluntarily provide information that classifies us in every possible area of life. We share private moments online, sometimes believing they will remain private, using platforms owned by the same corporations that collect our data. We hand over photos, preferences, habits, and fragments of our identity so casually that they no longer even seem important.
I do not want to open the separate chapter of fake news here, because that would require an article of its own. Yet we are often shocked when governments, such as China’s, restrict or block certain social networks and services for their citizens.
It is censorship, yes. But is it always entirely wrong?
All the information we share can be cross-referenced with countless other databases, whether public, private, or accessible only to large corporations. Is that safe? Are we sure this information will always be used to improve our lives, rather than to influence or control them? Are we sure our data will remain protected from those who want to exploit it, study it, and manipulate us through it?
We have already seen many major data breaches and digital scandals that shocked the public. And what about the ones we still do not know about?
That is why I am saying this today: privacy is something we all need. If this article can achieve one thing, even for the few people who will read it to the end, I hope it is this: sometimes sharing one less piece of information is better than sharing one more.
We need privacy for our data. Our social profiles, our browsers, our providers, and the platforms we trust may no longer be keeping us safe. Perhaps the so-called conspiracists were not entirely wrong. Perhaps they were simply ahead of their time.
To everyone who understands this message: thank you.
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