The security of privacy

Revision as of 13:21, 15 January 2014

No man is an island is an aphorism that acknowledges a person's place in a society, but it does not negate one's privacy which essentially is also ones identity. From the hunter gatherer days of the ancient past to the present social networking frenzy, humankind has come a long way indeed. In all this long and eventful journey, the struggle to retain one's cherished privacy from the encroachment on it by a government or any organized body has been a part and parcel of humanity's existence itself.

As society evolves and governments grow one's privacy and individuality are often tending to be subsumed in what is called the 'common good'. But is is always well to bear in mind that the so called common good, however desirable it may be, is still harmful in the long run if individual's privacy and thereby one's freedom is encroached upon or vitiated.

There is the well-known saying (attributed to the eminent jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, among others!) that your right to swing your fist ends right where another's nose begins. Certainly in a society where we all interact for our own good, the common good, we are called upon to cede some of our cherished privacy. Be it our tax return or other applications where we are asked to disclose our private details or when you join the military to defend your nation, you willy nilly forgo some of your privacy and 'own space'.

But NOW, with the advent of electronic communication and computerized data gathering and storage, this issue has assumed a vastly dire dimension than ever. The recent disclosures about the alarming reach and scope of snooping and collection of data, including telephone calls made and received by individuals — all in the name of security and the intention of preventing rather than being forced to face a disaster upon the lines of 9/11 – has made every one sit up and think if this is all worth it or should some boundaries be set even for this apparently vital and vast effort on the part of those who are there to protect us.

The only sane and successful approach to this problem would be not to do away with one for the sake of the other, but to think of both security and privacy as relative, and determining the limits for both. After all, let us not forget we willingly expose ourselves in social networking sites who gather the data and use it for advertising – an inroad into our privacy.

In conclusion, gathering every bit of information however remotely connected to a threat may be self-defeating in that the plan may be missed for the details. Hopefully, the very same technology that enables all this to be done with monster computers, can also devise less intrusive methods or at least methods that would give a sense of assurance to the people that their privacy is not being blatantly flouted.