Thanks to the ubiquity of technology, all kinds of businesses are storing, manipulating and sometimes trading your personal data these days. For some people, such activities raise the specter of Big Brother, the totalitarian government so powerfully depicted by George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Much of the time, though, big business has more benign and, indeed, more welcome intentions. When companies know who we are and what we want, they can better cater to our needs and desires. Nonetheless, the multiplication of ways our personal data are obtained and used should give pause for reflection.
Most people think about it in a limited, emotional and immediate sense.
After all, it is disconcerting to know that complete strangers have as intimate a knowledge of us as our friends or family. But privacy also has an important political function. It is a crucial component of the freedom to act independently. Few intrusions into our lives limit autonomous action more than being watched. As computers become more powerful and data-gathering more ubiquitous, the potential for encroachment on personal space becomes more real.