QotW6: Privacy, Surveillance, Sousveillance

How many times have we given our mailing address, telephone numbers, and even credit card numbers online, without really thinking twice about who may gain access to our information, tamper with it, and ultimately rob us of the millions in our treasury. Well, for me, your Average Andrea (who often books movie tickets online), despite bring very far from smelling my millionth dollar, have wondered if my precious couple of hundreds are at risk of slipping through my fingers (with just a push of the 'ENTER' button).


Fortunately for many of us, we haven't had our money cheated from us. But what about our email inbox that is loaded with spam? How and where do you reckon that came from? Undoubtedly, at some point in time we unknowingly surrendered our email to some wrong website (Sullivan, 2006). Furthermore, Sullivan adds "...the one simple act of surrendering a telephone number to a store clerk can set in motion a cascade of silent events, as that data point is acquired, analyzed, categorized, stored and sold over and over again. Future attacks on privacy may come from anywhere, from anyone with money to purchase that surrendered phone number."


Apart from the instances where we may be required to submit important personal data, such as in making online purchases, there are various other avenues of self-exposure in cyberspace like blogs, social network sites, forums, chatrooms, etc.


Rosen (2004) highlights that "the Internet has vastly increased the opportunities for individuals to subject themselves to the demands of the personality market, resulting in ever increasing confusion and anxiety about how much of ourselves to reveal to strangers." He adds that the logic of Eric Fromm's (1955) "marketed self" into a virtual world where the easiest way to attract the attention and winning the trust of strangers is to establish an emotional connection with them by projecting a consistent, memorable, and trustworthy image (Rosen, 2004).


Being part of Friendster, a social networking site, I voluntarily expose myself (or rather a part of myself) to friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. There are twenty-seven people in my 'Pending Friend Requests' list; and the reason why they are still in the 'pending' list is because either (1) I don't know them personally, (2) I don't recognize them, or (3) I don't believe their identity is authentic. For instance, I don't buy the idea that Leslie Kwok, the oh-so-dreamy former national swimmer, wants to be my 'friend'. Sure, post a group photo with him in it and use "lesliek" in your email address. I am still not going to fall for it. In fact I think it would be more likely for me to 'accept' William Hung as my 'friend', since he is also on that pending list.


Unfortunately, as much as I try to protect myself from the snares of the "virtual citizens", by limiting my profile exposure to what Friendster calls '2nd Degree Friends', I still have 27,257 'friends' (who ironically are yet unknown to me) that have easy access to information about me through this site.


Privacy discourages information sharing between individuals (Wikipedia, 2007). And privacy is precisely the reason why I haven't participated in any other social networking sites, or caught on to the trend of blogging. (Although I do wait in anticipation to see if this course, COM 125, can make me a convert.)



REFERENCES

Fromm, E. (1955). The Sane Society. Reinhart. p141-42


Privacy. (2007, March 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:54, March 9, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Privacy&oldid=113354124


Rosen, J. (2004). The Naked Crowd. Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm


Sullivan, B. (2006). Privacy Lost: Does Anybody Care? Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/


See the Friendster.com website