When Broad Surveillance Changes Life

There's an interesting entry from a German blogger about broad telecommunications surveillance in Germany and how it has changed behavior:

Since the beginning of this year, communication providers are required to record who communicated with whom and when (but not the content of the communication). This data is stored for six months and available to law enforcement in cases related to certain forms of crime.

In at least one study, close to three-quarters of people knew about the data recording, 11 percent was already avoiding phone, cell phone, or email for certain communications, and over half "said they probably would not use telecommunication for contacts like drug counselors, psychotherapists or marriage counselors because of data retention." What happens when many people won't look for help when they need it because they fear telephoning or emailing someone, possibly even to set up an appointment?

Tag, You're It and Internet Privacy

What a few little words can do. According to an article in the Harvard Law Review, when facial recognition software and image "tags" (the words used to describe the contents of a photo) meet the Internet, the growing possibility is that people will be losing their privacy.

The article has some interesting examples: Republican Bob Corker who had to face a bit of a scandal when a picture of his daughter kissing another girl showed up on someone's Facebook account, or television local news anchor Catherine Bosley lost her job after a picture surfaced of her taking part in a wet-t-shirt contest (in the presence of her husband and with some considerable psychology pressure after facing several life-threatening illnesses). But what happens when people can search the web to snoop on their friends, relatives, colleagues, and neighbors? Search for someone's name stuck to a picture and see what comes up.

Now expand the concept a bit. Millions of people keep blogs. What if they're adding subject tags to the blogs? What does that say about how they associate information? What will people - or employers or rivals or anyone else with an agenda - think about them and how will they react? What might you learn about someone, or what might someone learn about you, given the combinations of tags that are now associated with your name? The more you are on the Web in any way, shape, or form, the greater a chance you have of losing your privacy.