Technology has meant a wide-scale loss of privacy in comparison to what we enjoyed just twenty years ago. It is not just our personal information that is being abused. We are subject to almost daily scrutiny of our lives. In most countries now video surveillance cameras are accepted as a way of life to combat crime. Computers can now talk to other computers and, if properly programmed, can exchange information between machines automatically.
Computers can monitor every aspect of our online activities.
In the work place, electronic monitoring of employees is not unusual. In many corporations it is becoming a standard practice in the name of administrative efficiency. In the industrialized countries there are billions of bits of information shared daily. At the same time the prying, ever watchful eye of the camera is increasingly panning more and more of our lives. The problem lies not just with the business world but also with governments who find these technologies more and more persuasive to execute their programs.