What is the relationship between technology and the public expectation of privacy when we are out there freely sharing personal data online: shopping, banking, buying and selling stocks, downloading books and newspapers, blogging, tweeting, posting family events to Facebook, etc?
We frantically search our mental database for occasions when we may have input personal information that might be used to threaten or steal from us. We learn that Target or Walmart or Neiman Marcus have reported that their database has been compromised and react with fear of identity theft from information we so freely gave away in making a recent purchase. And what about Medical privacy? How much control do we really have over what a doctor places in our records that might give away a personal aspect of our life that we would prefer remain private? And now there is Snowden. What does the Government know about us? Digital eyes everywhere watching all the time; identifiable data collected and stored in digital form or otherwise. When was it collected, where is it stored, what do they know about what we watch, or eat, or listen to…. or if we go to church? Why should I care? Why should they care?
Join futurist David Houle on Wednesday at Einstein’s Circle when he talks with us from his book IS PRIVACY DEAD and provokes us to think more deeply about the issues by examining the past, living in the present and contemplating a future of dramatically diminished personal privacy.
