Privacy: The biggest, most fundamental issue of our time

Privacy, or the need for it, has come to light to me lately. My brother gave me some very good advice a few weeks ago:

"Don't worry about what you can't control"

This is very true, of course and very good advice.

Not long ago I posted a blog focusing mainly on Facebook: Social Networking or Spy Networking?

One of the main things Facebook does unbeknown to you if you are a computer novice is it will send out information to your friends - things like what you post to other people in the public domains (or their, "walls").

Targeted advertising is another one - if you are a university student you will get adverts offering student discounts and the like. Its a scary thought what information you can give out on the internet.

Targeted advertising is something that we cannot control at our own will. But I would not be surprise if one day this issue comes up in the media one way or another.

So back to the first point: Don't worry about what you can't control. We have the rights to report photos if we do not give our prior consent to publication, or report people posting or discussing our lives as a form of gossip that may be damaging to our reputation.

Facebook does indeed provide this facility, and people can be excluded from even the most minute of details - whether you are single, in a relationship, whether when you break up with your girlfriend it becomes public knowledge or not. It is not at all uncommon for people, even if it is friends out of curiosity, to "comment" on an issue, but then everybody else on the host;'s friend list can see this. With Facebook privacy settings you can do this. You can limit your friends to being able to do nothing but message you if you so wish.

It is, I believe, within our rights to know whats going on in our surroundings and to know what people may know about us which we might wish to withhold from them for whatever reason (be it job, personal privacy, dislike of nosiness, etc).

It is therefore, reasonable to expect to know what we might encounter at any given time. Living in a somewhat public residence (private bedrooms/communal ground floor), it has becoming increasingly familiar to me and important to me to understand and know that people could be in close proximity at any given time and I may not expect this to be the case if I were living in a private home elsewhere where I could expect privacy.

When in the public domain - whether Facebook or in the real world - we deserve to know what to expect and be respected with a certain level of privacy. Facebook, though it provides the possibility for this, is not so outgoing with its privacy policies and I think that they could do more to educate current and new users on privacy control. In the real world, reality, it is unfortunately, sadly a different matter. The most scariest of things is that even living in the most public of places, people are in such close quarters that they could, unwittingly, unknowingly, or God forbid intentionally invade privacy or violate their privileges of use of such a communal area.

Anybody could be walking around. Anybody could turn their back. It's not paranoia. We live in the 21st century and the information age, people just don't leave their doors unlocked anymore out of a sense of naievety. It is about protection, being safe. Knowledge is power.

I'm just glad I have a lock on my door.