Will Social Media Save Us?
Vivien at Inspiration Bit has published the results of her Social Media Mega Project; this has made me think about the consequences of sharing data. We hear on a regular basis about the dangers, but could there be a corresponding up-side?
We Brits have been hearing tales of the miracle that is state controlled information for some time now. The Government, while losing significant amounts of data through pure carelessness, persist in pushing an ID card scheme that would see all of our personal data safeguarded for later access by corporations and hackers of the world. At the same time we hear that chip and pin technology isn’t any more secure than pin numbers on ATMs were, and that biometric passports can be read by any scanner passing within 10 feet of us.
While all of this goes on we are continually warned of the dangers that disclosing personal information can bring. If you wanted to find my mother’s name on the internet I have no doubt that you could. My place of birth, my favourite football team, I bet it is all out there waiting to be got.
So what do we do?
All of the problems we have with data are predicated on one ‘truth’: That data matters. The data can only be used against us if that information has personal meaning to us. Social media provides a way to remove the connection: Publish everything.
If any piece of data you might want to use to identify a person is publicly available for anyone to use then it ceases to have meaning. If anyone can use my fingerprint, or know any personal information about me, then it cannot be used to identify me.
Now obviously this still leaves a potential problem, how do we identify a person if all personally identifiable information is shared throughout the world?
I would ask a question in return: why do we need to be identified?
inspirationbit comments:
identity theft is a pretty scary thing, so it pays to be extra cautious with giving too much of our personal information online. When I was registering on Facebook, the year of birth was the required field to fill out. So I filled out a different one, not because I’m hiding my age, but because I don’t want to give away all the personal info about me that can be compromised.
P.S. I really like the new look of this blog - very refreshing. Nicely done, Andrew.
2nd April 2008 , 07:38
Andrew comments:
Thanks Vivien,
I am still not happy with the details, but I’m glad you like it.
Identity theft is a scary thing, that is why the Government holding all my data in one place scares me so much. They are the last people who should have our data.
3rd April 2008 , 07:26