Redefining Privacy

Do we have privacy now?

My personal answer is NO (or at least we need to redefine the meaning of it).
Recalling in the past 20 years, where camera phone is something out of this world, Global Positioning System (GPS) is a science-fiction movie ingredient, and where internet is just a name in the lab, and terrorism has nothing to do with me.

Today, camera phones have proliferated, GPS is no longer a technical jargon, and internet is a thing that we “must-have” stuff. And terrorism has something to do with me, through the unrelated silly dirty means. The Islam-phobia in the western block makes my access to their world like I would like to detonate an atomic bomb in their soil. Luckily, after I have my residential permit, everything seems to be no-longer suspicious look. What a load of rubbish.

(abg besar sedang melihat kamu?)

The most fearful part is, not only can electronic systems collect far more information that they could 20 years ago, but they can put it all together in new ways. Computer storage and memory has increased by a tremendous factor, and data analysis techniques and analysis have become much better. All of this information are integrated, and will be able to relate to each other. Information leakage from one places to another make worse the problem. The most common problem (literally – I put it as a problem), is every time I would to buy something from the internet, the online merchant tells me that “other people who bought what you bought also bought such and such”. Pretty annoying to have a salesperson who is following you around when you’re doing your shopping (in the real world – REAL WORLD), now we have the same structure in the online buying. I’m reminded that the merchant is making analysis about me based on my buying pattern, by relating this with the particular group of people. (this is better than having a salesperson who is niggling you all the time).

Our version of privacy invasion; Mami Jarum :-) ..heh..heh..heh

The argument about privacy seems to have two extremities. When I did have my discussion with my colleagues here, they would like to give all their private information to the government, in return to save queuing time in airport security lines. For them, privacy is not worth of anything as long as they can save time every time they fly. I can say – they are in the middle of these extremities. At one side of being extreme, there is a group of people who practicing zero privacy by exposing their life (or their ……..), on the internet, for all to see. A simple one, people make blog as a personal journal (even too personal, too intimate, too secret) revealing everything about their life to the world. I guess I’m one of them, but not in the state of revealing everything yet (and have no intention to do so). I sometimes wonder who reads (watches) those stuffs, but I guess it is normal for human to love something personal about others, that would rather to watch someone life than their own. (zaman dulu2 makcik2 bergossip dekat tangga waktu petang sambil sikat2 rambut, sekarang pakai blog, atau Yahoo Messenger....heh…heh..heh).




And another side, there is a group against this thing. From their perspective, there should be laws leaving out the government from collecting (or revealing) personal information. In their judgment, that historical examples of government abuses are not promising. I do believe that. By not having that, privacy may be voluntarily sacrificed, normally in exchange for perceived benefits and very often with specific dangers and losses, although this is a very strategic view of human relationships.

So, there is big dilemma. Is the privacy is no longer privacy by the definition of time and technology? Or, we are now changing the definition of privacy, by the course of time. I guess, I have no solid answer for that.

Without realizing it, we are now redefining the meaning of privacy, according to our own mold.

pesan pakcik: berhati2 ye ......