Are We Safe in This Digital World?

For the past few months I've been talking to friends about data privacy and security. The first question is always: "Why should I care?", "I don't have anything to hide", "How does it matter?"

Let me ask you: Are you okay with your neighbors peeping through your window? Are you okay with someone knowing how much you get paid and when?

If you're okay with that, you can stop reading. If not, then you need to understand why data privacy matters.

The Wake-Up Calls

I used to use Facebook, Gmail, Google Photos, Drive, Maps—everything.

One day a friend uploaded a photo I was in. She didn't tag me. But Facebook told me I was in that photo and asked if I wanted to tag myself.

Another day I searched "SSN" in Google Photos. It filtered out a photo of my SSN card that I'd taken a year earlier.

Then I walked into a giant shopping mall. My maps app asked about my experience at the exact small shop I visited—a tiny corner on the second floor of that massive building. How on earth did it know I was in that exact location?

What They Know

Think about your day:

• Wake up: Alarm tells them your sleep patterns
• Morning: Bank login with 2FA through Google Voice—they have your username, password (saved in Chrome), and 2FA codes
• Throughout the day: Emails reveal your contacts, family relationships, conversations
• Payday: Direct deposit notification shows how much and when you get paid

Is there anything my "neighbor" (Facebook, Google) can't see? I don't think so. They know what I do every day. Now they're predicting what I'll do tomorrow.

The Trust Problem

The only reason we're in this situation is because we trusted everything—better or worse—without evidence. Who knows what these companies are working on internally? Is anyone reviewing their code? Does anyone have the capability to audit them?

Here's what worries me: Quantum computing (100 million times faster than your laptop) is coming. True AI is being built. These companies have money, power, and soon tools at massive scale.

What's our break-even point for trust?

Ken Thompson wrote "Reflections on Trusting Trust"—you shouldn't trust anything you didn't build yourself. That blew my mind.

The Irony

People debate that these features help mankind push technology forward. But at what cost? Do we know there's still humanity in tools that don't have life and live on the internet?

As someone once said: "If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't."

The same irony applies here. The tools our neighbors are building will surpass humans in every way. And we're fueling them with fingerprints, iris scans, and our complete digital lives—still trusting they won't hurt us.

Should we be submissive about our data?

Data privacy and security is a basic human right.

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Further Reading

• Edward Snowden on government surveillance: edwardsnowden.com
• Wrongful arrest by facial recognition algorithm: NYTimes
• "Reflections on Trusting Trust" by Ken Thompson: PDF