The more I spend time online, the more concerned I’m getting about the amount of personal information that is available to casual observers. It’s practically a biography of your life. I was never one of the people who was particularly concerned with online privacy, but recently, I’ve begun to feel as though perhaps the world knows more about Robert Hof than it really ought to.
Last weekend, my friend Ian Smith over at Datapro was the evildoer who finally convinced me to join Facebook. I have proceeded, like millions before me, to tell people things about my life that I probably shouldn’t have, and to waste countless hours reconnecting with people, from grade school, to exgirlfriends, high school, etc etc etc.
No one piece of information was particularly damning - quite frankly, I don’t have any skeletons in my closet (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) - but taken as a whole, facebook probably has as much information on me as CSIS - maybe more.
One particularly insidious question Facebook asks: WHEN? If you add up all your old friends, coworkers, etc, and put them in a chronology, you get a very useful snapshot of where a person was, what they did, where they worked, and other things which can be used and misused in countless ways.
I’ve started to think seriously about how to deal with this growing level of data surrounding every online person. How should I react? Like a credit report? Seek to get rid of inaccuracies? All but impossible online - once (mis)information is published, its out there forever.
Or, the anarchist point of view - ultimate freedom, ultimate responsibility. With everything you do or say now potentially recorded forever and publicly available, you’re now more accountable for your actions than ever before.
Obviously, I’ll have to think about this some more. What do you think?
I give out more personal information in one piss up on the town in my local bar. I’m actually more concerned with that. But all joking aside, no really all joking aside, what is personal information anyways? It may be presented or taken for the good or the bad.
Lets take for example “Facebook”, wasn’t that designed to be a format to raise your social status? For example, “oh look at me, don’t I know how to party, and I have pretty friends?” or at least the ones I will let you see, or “look at me how important I am, can’t you see it in the pictures?” well if you can’t, look harder or I’ll have to post it on my SUPER WALL!
Is it misrepresentation or intentional? Who care if I went to high school in Toronto and used to hang out at the pool hall (unless I owed you money, then I didn’t hang out at the pool hall at the corner of Keele and Lawrence in the early 80’s, opps I’ve said too much)
I would never give out my home address, all the places and dates that I’ve worked and/or my social insurance number for that matter. If you’re that stupid give me your credit card number I won’t give it out, but I might buy myself something nice cause you basically just gave it to me as a gift!
Oh by the way, that is my real name and if I had a picture of my long curly blond hair, chisled abs and armani suit ….. Hey that gives me a good idea….