Why am I writing my personal thoughts on private issues?

If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that you have at least a curiosity about privacy. Indeed it’s an issue that many of us take for granted while we concurrently give away more data than we realize. Many people have written about this topic and have approached it, in my own thinking, from many different angles. My intent with this blog is simply to chronicle the things that I come across in the realm of privacy and my evolving ideas on the point. Why am I doing this? Well, I think it’s something that many people don’t think too much about until it’s too late. Weather you jealously guard your privacy, fiercely manage your image (can you say Politicians; I knew you could) or you live an open-book life (Twitter and MySpace users come to mind) the concepts of privacy play a role in who we are and how we will be perceived. Indeed the use of this kind of information may indeed become the most important impact on many of our lives in the coming decades.

The danger in letting something private out is that is it almost impossible to ever make it private again. Like the genie in the bottle; once something is in the “open” it is almost impossible to put it back in the bottle. Opening up the Pandora’s box of privacy may bring forth unknown consequence that we only fully appreciate after the damage has been done.

I don’t consider myself much of a conspiracy theorist and I’m not a zealot who envisions an Orwellian future, but I am someone who thinks that far too few people really think about their privacy and what it is really worth. Many more don’t really think about what leading a public life will mean to society. It is these issues that I think need to be raised and discussed; then as a society we can decide what we want to allow. I believe in an informed populous but those who seek to violate others privacy rarely advertise their actions. My hope is that we will never end up in a world where our private information is used against us but this might be a bit naive (after all, there are more than a few examples of this kind of thing (Ted Haggard, come on down!)).

So it is with the dual goals of bringing my thoughts on privacy to the public (the irony is not lost on me) in hopes of furthering the public debate on the idea, as well as to inform those who are interested in what some of the privacy issues in our world are that you might not know about that I decided to start this blog. I am not a professional blogger but you are welcome to comment here in the blog or email me personally.