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On Privacy Protection
I'm in the midst of writing an interesting post related to my recent online content acquisition (browsing in common words!) and I thought I'll take a brief pit stop to talk about our privacy in the current world climate. I've never really cared much for privacy in terms of my own identity. It's habit I suppose. I've never questioned the "whys" i.e. why do you need my Identity Card number for this purpose or why do you need to know my home address/phone number etc. I think I grew up on a trust-based system which was further supported by the perception that whoever's handling your information is primarily going to dump it in some box that will never see the light of day. This was in the days of paper-based identity management. Now, with all the issues surrounding online (and offline) identity thefts, I've started questioning things again.Just recently I had to apply for a visa for Indonesia and Tanzania (mountain climbing trips and I'll definitely post more about these treks in future). For both these cases, I had to provide a laundry list of documents including a full back-to-back copy of my passport. That's regulation for Pakistani nationals and if you want to travel you have to do that i.e. I'm not in a position to negotiate the process. I signed up for McDonalds online delivery and had to provide a lot of information there as well. Pretty much anything you do online now (and I'm sure you'll all agree) has to be supported with an increasing amount of personal information divulgence. However, after the recent hacking of Sony's servers and hearing of various cases of forged documents (ala identity theft) I wonder if it's time to re-think the way we manage identity both online and offline.
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Let me be clear, I'm not insinuating that anyone who's acquiring this information is doing so unnecessarily (at least intentionally) or with malicious intent. I'm also not saying that what I'm talking about is something unique and hasn't been a cause for concern for people or organizations. I'm making two points here: a) how I feel people who grew up in the offline world are perceiving this and b) is this issue somehow manageable with technology.
The thing to note is that I still give as much (if not more) information that is required in such cases. And I can't really explain why I still don't question it enough. Perhaps it has more to do with how I was brought up where trust was given by default. However, in the world I'm in now (which is vastly different to the one I was brought up in), whenever I have to volunteer information, I'm left with an uneasy feeling. The feeling of: what if?
Has any organization (cue the leading technology companies) really thought of how to manage this? Are there technological solutions that can address any of these issues? Can we have authentication done against a central authority where all organizations requiring any authentication on a person's behalf simply need to get an "ok" or "not ok" from this central authority? If so, can we trust this central authority with all our personal data? What is the right way forward in this area which I feel will become increasingly more convoluted and important in the coming decades. Any thoughts?
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