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A Transparent Society

January 3rd, 2009

Back in 1999, David Brin released a book called The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? Many of my friends and I thought that it was perhaps a bit alarmist, but I’ll admit that I had rosy glasses on then. I thought that it was still possible to right the wrongs that technology was imposing and allowing.

Fast forward to September 2007, when Law Professor and privacy activist Michael Geist was giving the closing talk at an International Privacy conference.

There’s no stopping it: we are increasingly living in a transparent society.

Coaching moment: In the book and in the video, both men talk about leaving fingerprints behind and being tracked by surveillance cameras and databases, and the consequent changes that this activity entails. On a personal level, many of us are uncomfortable with this level of involuntary disclosure. It’s as if we suddenly had a digital firefly attached to us.

On one hand, if everything and everyone is being tracked, who will have time to make sense of it all? On the other hand, we are quickly developing the computing power to visualize all kinds of activities and behaviors. It’s only when the tracking is focused on one single person that it becomes troublesome.

What would you do differently if you knew you were always being watched?

UPDATE: There’s an important essay written by noted security expert Bruce Schneier called The Myth of the “Transparent Society” that is a must read for everyone that thinks that increasing transparency is alright. The problem at its core is the imbalance of power between the disclosing and using parties.

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