My latest personal splurge was an imported, digest-sized magazine from England. Hot off the press and air-freighted direct to my hot little hands, it featured the usual trending fashions, relationship ‘do’s and don’ts’ and sumptuous images of beautiful women wearing expensive shoes. This monthly femme bible, along with others like it, is aimed squarely at the modern woman. ‘Should you respond to Twitter trolls?’ one double spread queried. ‘Stop Googling your dates!’ advised another. Even the centre-feature was dedicated to a writer on assignment, chronicling her one week experience dressed up as different cult fashion-bloggers.
These days, you cannot resonate with your readers unless the issues being aired are contextualised by their online world. Ever more, my generation and those to follow engage with others and understand life and the world through an electronic filter. We share, like and push information through our different channels. We create, publish and curate things that we care about and can relate to, implicitly and explicitly leaving digital footprints as we go.
The upshot of our electronic engagement is that our day‑to‑day activities are constantly being documented. Life is no longer fleeting. It is archived, can be retrieved and will eventually be accessed by someone, somewhere, one day for any number of reasons. I am aware of this, as are my tech-savvy contemporaries. Our sacrifice for being constantly connected, entertained and empowered by online information is agreeing to a digital legacy, which means that our past indiscretions and the future risk to which we are subscribing become permanent fixtures of our identity.
OUR IDEAS ON PRIVACY
According to UOW privacy law academic Yvonne Apolo, ever since the emergence of the computer, privacy-invasive developments in technology and the subsequent transition to electronic personal records, the world has paid more attention to the issue of privacy and its legal protection.
“Deeper conceptual issues of privacy remain uncharted in debates, and are thus the focus of my research. Whilst the attempt of much privacy law literature is to inquire into the ways in which the law should evolve to meet contemporary privacy concerns, seldom does it address the manner in which contemporary technologies and practices are challenging existing conceptualisations of privacy and existing understandings of what it means to be human subjects,” Apolo says.
She says that our way of thinking has changed, not necessarily about what is or is not private, but in the way that we now perceive those intimate circles privy to the details of our personal lives.
“Privacy, I argue, is ultimately relational in nature. A cocktail of a growing culture of confession and self-disclosure, adoration of celebrity and an endless pursuit of visibility, muddled with rapid technological advancement and online social platforms at our fingertips, means that much ‘private information’ now invades the public arena,” she says.
“It has always been the case that information of a private nature is that which a person chooses to disclose to select groups of intimate others. With the advent of pervasive technologies that allow and encourage increasing online engagement, the pool of select others we choose to share ‘private’ information with is ever-expanding,”
she explains.
she explains.
“A yearning for visibility and associated social acceptance means that contemporary subjects are often complicit in the demise of their own privacy. I argue that this ‘pathology’ is what characterises the current crisis of privacy in Australian law – it is certainly a complex issue.”
THE REAL WORLD IMPLICATIONS
Indeed the complex relationship between privacy and technology can often transcend all theoretical discussion with alarming consequences. Carl Minette has been working as a Criminal Law Solicitor for Legal Aid New South Wales for 15 years. In this time he has seen an upsurge in the abuse of technology and online platforms to facilitate criminal conduct.
“There simply wasn’t the capacity to do what people can do to each other today,” Minette says.
“Some years ago, you could threaten someone over the telephone – if you had one at home or if you could be bothered walking down to the phone box to call someone. You could also send someone a nasty letter by snail mail – if you could be bothered buying a stamp and posting it. People are shocked when they discover the maximum penalty for this type of offence can be imprisonment for up to 10 years.”
According to Minette, threatening or harassing others via texting and social networking platforms are the most prevalent and basic criminal offences that come before the Courts.
“Technological advances have also led to an increase in offences such as ‘sexting’, or taking and sending intimate photographs of each other (or ex-partners) by SMS,” he says.
“What may seem like harmless fun can have potentially life-changing ramifications, particularly if the person in the image is less than 18 years of age. The person who takes and/or transmits that image may find themselves facing the Courts and lengthy gaol sentences for procuring and dealing in child pornography. They can also find themselves on a sex-offender’s register, which limits their ability to work in some areas. This is concerning when you take into account the number of young people with access to mobile phones.”
“Throughout history, humans have always found new ways to harm each other regardless of, and sometimes because of, advances in technology. Unfortunately I can’t see that changing anytime soon. Today’s technology just allows us to do it more quickly and often from a ‘safe’ distance.”
Minette does not have a Facebook account – he doesn’t feel the need to – and although he has a Twitter account, he has never tweeted.
“It’s a personal choice. I tend to be a private person,” he says.
“I am not a technophobe; I have an iPad and I always have the latest iPhone, both full to capacity with useful and useless Apps,” he adds.
David Vohradsky relies on one device to telephone, diarise, email, catch the news, record audio and check his train timetable. The independent IT consultant believes that the impact of our more connected lifestyles is an opportunity to focus on ethical questions and determine the kind of global culture we all want.
“Predictions are that the impact of disruptive technology will not only continue but will accelerate, particularly in media and entertainment, banking and telecommunications,” Vohradsky says.
“The upside is that there will be greater opportunities for self-realisation as location constraints disappear. I believe there will be a greater focus in the future on neighbourhoods rather than CBD office blocks, as more people work from home and become micro-entrepreneurs.”
“A downside to this change is the scope for greater corporate and government awareness – and possibly monitoring – of our personal lives. This collection of more and more data will make both corporate and individual decision-making more difficult and possibly irrational, at least in the short term. I believe that more and more innovation in the consumer sector will lead to an increase in self-gratification and a reduced interest in others.”
Vohradsky speaks from a background of operating and improving IT governance, security framework and management systems. To his mind, the brave new technological world that we face poses significant risks, not just to the individual but also companies.
“Around 90% of advanced cyber-attacks are attributed to a certain foreign government phishing, deploying malware and then hacking for classified government information, insider information or trade secrets from foreign companies in their region,” he says.
“Take for example the 2004 ‘Titan Rain’ attack on NASA, Lockheed Martin and its Sandia Energy Research Lab, as well as the Redstone Arsenal (a US military command centre).
“Most attacks originate in the US or Eastern European countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and the Russian Federation. These attackers have now established sophisticated online markets to buy and sell attacking tools as well as the stolen data and their normal staple of drugs and weapons. They have even established identity-theft-as-a-service models for those wishing to enter this criminal arena at low cost.”
But, he warns, the enemy can also originate closer to home, with most executives of the belief that current or former employees are the greatest source of potential risk an organisation faces – while employed staff may bypass security, hide their identity or use other’s identity, causing data leakage.
“Immature user access revalidation or employee termination processes often leave unsecured or even shared identities to be exploited by others in the organisation or external attackers that may discover them,” Vohradsky says.
“Often human error is the cause of disclosure of personal or other sensitive data held in email address lists, spreadsheets, or portable devices and equipment.”
“Two of the greatest IT risks also facing companies are privacy/digital misinformation; and ‘The Internet of Things’. Privacy breaches are emerging as the most talked about IT risk – especially as the regulatory environment increases, and the extent of use of private or semi-private information and the breach of that trust becomes more well-known. Digital misinformation is an emerging risk with ‘Big Data’ and is the risk of compromise of the integrity of analytics or confidentiality arising from the use of analytics. A classic example is the story last year of a pregnant teenager’s parents seeing her emails from Target in the US with coupons for baby clothes and furniture. These were sent based on the history of her preparatory purchases and prior to anyone being told about the pregnancy.”
THE TECHNOLOGICAL HIGHWAY: WHERE WE ARE HEADED
The subject of privacy as personal or corporate information cast out into the cyber world is so multifaceted. To some extent, few of us are aware exactly what the terms of this social contract we are entering into are. One thing to be certain of is that we are in the thick of it.
In Apolo’s words, “it is first necessary for there to be in place legal avenues of redress for serious invasions of privacy that are fostered by such ‘connectedness’ and secondly, this law of privacy should be premised upon a deep, and well-theorised, understanding of the meaning and value of privacy, and our contemporary relationship with it in the digital era. At present, the law in Australia fails to satisfy these necessities. Technological advancement in general is a marvellous thing and is the only way forward.”
Editor: At the time of publication, the Australian Law Reform Commission announced that it is conducting an inquiry into protection of privacy in the digital era.
