Privacy Today and Yesterday

With the advancement of technology, privacy is getting more and more like a luxury. Everything is getting more transparent and information, be it private or public, is now easily available (in a click). Everyone knows what you are doing, if you are doing benevolent deeds, great. How if you did something that you don’t want any one to know? Sometime it can severely affect our life, look at Tammy from NYP, whose secret video was leaked out. The whole world knows what she is doing and laughs at her. The internet is certainly speeding up the distribution of her video. Is she a celebrity now? Or a victim? Especially in the Asian context, her reputation is all but gone. The whole family and her inner circle must be embarrassed or pity her as well.

A second example is when Saddam Hussein was hanged, the whole world is interested in going into you tube to download his hanging video. Further, the video is recorded by someone using hand phone camera . This kind of doing is called surveillance which is personal experience capture. According to the wikipedia, surveillance is the recording or monitoring of real or apparent authority figures by others. Even in his death, silence is not granted to him. Any one in the world with access to the internet are practically seeing his hanging which supposed to be done in “private”.
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However, privacy is not really new issues. It has been in years and years that people can steal other people privacy offline which is called identity theft. When someone wrongly obtains or uses another person’s privacy or personal date in some way involved fraud or deception typically for economic gain. Most of the identity theft criminal engage in “shoulder surfing” , watching you from a nearby location and as you punch in your telephone calling card number or credit card number or listen in on your conversation and if give you give your credit card number over the telephone to a hotel or some company . Sometime area near your home or office may not be secure. Some criminal engage in “ dumpster diving “ going through your garbage cans or communal dumpster or trash bin to obtain copies of your checks , credit card or bank statement or other records that typically bear your name, address and even phone number. This type of records makes it easier for criminal to get control over account in your name and assume your identity.

However, in recent year, internet is become the most appealing place for criminal to obtain identity data such as password or banking information. A lot of online identity is occurred as phishing , bogus website address in spam email , Pharming . The British Socialogist “Antony Giddens that citizens in a risk society no longer rely on traditional or fixed hierarchy to establish their identity or to give them reliable guidance about whom they turst in a society ”(Rosen, 19/7,2004)

Therefore, in order to prevent form being the victims of identity theft don’t give your personal information unless you have a reason to trust them. If you have credit or debit card check whether you have been receiving the lists of the transaction for the most recent moth or reporting period.

Reference

Rosen, J. (2004). [On-line]. Retrieved March 9, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm

Sousveillance. (2007, February 7). [On-line]. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 9, 2007, from the World Wide Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Sousveillance&oldid=106389703

Corel , Section, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Retrived March 9,2007 from http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/idtheft.html