Loss of Privacy

1984 by George Orwell is a fascinating book. It is an account of a totalitarian world in which every action and thought is controlled by an all powerful state. Reading it today, it can seem a bit over the top. I bring this book up because our headlong rush into a brave new digital world may inadvertently be creating conditions conducive to something akin to the situation described there. The interconnectedness engendered by the Internet has resulted in a dramatic reshaping of industries and our expectations. Exciting new products and services are popping up almost daily. Existing business models are being mercilessly destroyed. In many cases, it is not certain which new business model will replace the old obsolete one and how long that will last. But what is really of concern is that we as a society are accepting a loss of privacy that would have horrified an earlier generation.

Take cell phones as an example. These devices are now ubiquitous in most parts of the world. Their growth rate has been extremely sharp in developing countries where they have been taken up as an alternative to a usually dysfunctional land line system. However, mobile phones also give governments the power to pinpoint the locations of anyone who uses them. This is a loss of privacy that we as consumers have willingly given up for the convenience in communications that the mobile represents. Credit cards are another good example. Each time we use a credit card to make a purchase, we leave behind an electronic trail - a trail that can be used to determine our likes, dislikes, habits perhaps even modes of thinking. Any website that asks for registration is yet another example. Each website that we register on is another strand of our personality profile that we voluntarily weave.

Together all these developments enable governments to increasingly closely monitor us at an individual level. This is a frightening level of control. Previous governments were constrained by the level of technology available. Today this constraint is being increasingly lifted due to developments in hardware and software. Already, the US government can monitor millions of phone calls in real time. Imagine the level of control that developments in the future can bring. This concern can be countered by saying that democratic governments would never abuse (or at least seriously abuse) the increasing invasion of privacy that technology has enabled. It can also be said that consumer groups and the the rule of law would ensure that citizen's privacy is not violated. The counter to this is Hitler. The Nazi government was democratically elected in what was considered to be one of the most civilized countries in Europe. That government subverted the entire democratic process and marched the country straight into the misery and anarchy of World War II and the horror of the holocaust. The degree of control exercised by the Nazis was astonishing and remember that this was using primitive technology. Of course it can be said that we have learned a lesson from that time and such an event would never be allowed to be perpetrated by a modern, democratic government. But then, what about the reaction of the US after 9/11? The country descended into mass hysteria. The PATRIOT act was passed which would have been impossible in an earlier time. US citizens were required to go for special registration simply based on their place of birth and their religion. Many of these people had been living in the country for decades. Nearly all of them were exemplary citizens. None of that mattered. All this happened in a country with some of the strongest institutions in the world. Take the case of India. In 2002, there was an attack on the Indian parliament. The entire country descended into paranoia and a major war almost started. What about the massacres in Gujarat shortly thereafter? A religious group was deliberately targeted using fairly primitive technology.

Who is to say what will happen in the future. To say that the technologies that allow for loss of privacy will never be used in that fashion is to make an unwarranted assumption. How can we ensure that a demagogue along the lines of say Hitler or Stalin will not rise in the future? Given enough time, the horror of the holocaust will lose its shock value. It will eventually became an event that happened in history. The emotional connection to the event will be lost. This is inevitable because the generation that directly experienced it has largely passed away. The next generation is in its senior years. Another 20 - 30 years and they too will be gone. After that will come generations that will have read about these event only in history books. Like us today, they will insist that such events can never happen - until they do.