It is a common complaint that our normal expectations of privacy are being eroded by applications and websites asking for personal data or shamelessly harvesting information about our private lives.
Is this concept going to change as the digital native generation enters the workplace? Will it change as our demands require more invasive sharing of data in order to supply seamless and personalised services? Will we persist in retaining a high degree of personal privacy — and can we find a solution that keeps everyone happy?
Why would we share?
Your private data is yours alone, so why would you want to voluntarily share it? Well, as it turns out, you may find that services will come in two versions in the future: anonymised services, which require a lot of input and authentication to get to what you want (think online banking); and personalised, customised services that know exactly who and where you are and what you want (think Apple’s Siri or Google).
Security systems armed with the ability to identify regular users and the ways they move through a premises can also, conversely, identify an unknown visitor or unusual movement. This could lead to a more effective means of identifying potential intruders.
The benefits of such individualised services have been recently demonstrated by a company called Nuance, the firm behind the Dragon speech tool. Its Wintermute project looks to provide this type of customisation seamlessly across multiple platforms and services by storing your custom data in the cloud against a unique ID assigned to each user.
This, the company says, will ensure privacy whilst allowing fully customised service.
Managed properly, you might be willing to share the fact that you are an F1 Racing fan when shops or websites query your profile, but you may keep the fact that you are a Chelsea fan to yourself. This tailoring of how you release personal data may redefine what we consider to be private information.
Where to draw the line?
While setting up my own home network recently I ran into the issue of securing the communications locally within my home when controlling TV sets and multimedia devices. I was wrestling with the idea of what type of encryption to use when it occurred to me that I was encrypting the communication channel only out of habit. So what if someone across the road or next door can tell that I am watching BBC1? Is it really a privacy issue when they could just as easily look through my front window and see the same information?
This got me thinking that perhaps we have gone too far towards an attitude of “everything is private unless we say otherwise.” In some cases we impede speed, performance, or interoperability as a result of defaulting to a privacy-first point of view.
We need to find a natural equilibrium between the freedom of movement and ease of use of the services we use regularly and the privacy we expect to retain in our day-to-day lives.
This will, no doubt, be a unique balance for each of us, as we all have very different conceptions of what we consider to be private. It is likely, though, that this line will move much further away from “everything is private” and much closer to a midpoint between sharing and securing.
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