Let’s start with some Greek mythology – an appropriate course of action given our supplement this week.
Greece, like Odysseus you could say, is treading a perilous journey back from the financial crisis and is now seeking our company at its resorts and attractions.
Odysseus had the gods watching his every move. We have Big Brother – after all, the terrorists would kill us all if they stopped watching.
Wherever we go, whatever we do, we leave an electronic trace behind us. We are broadband wireless. We bank, get information, send emails, like and dislike. Your profile is its own online entity. On the high-street and in traffic jams, you are on camera and under observation.
The debate over what to do with this personal information seems out of proportion. You may think that the files are erased – but are they really? You think your actions are forgotten – but are they really? You can never more be sure.
We know that we are navigating risky waters. Opt for the Charybdis route and lose everything – choose Scylla and lose more than you can imagine.
Maybe we should stop for a moment and ask if it really matters. Maybe a totalitarian government some day will use the files to find some of us out, but are we really in danger of a totalitarian takeover? The terrorists are likely to misuse the information, so why not make life more difficult for them by tracking them down electronically in every way possible.
The normal law-abiding citizen is caught in between. However, since we cannot stop the bad or good guys accessing the electronic files, the least we can do is to demand that our secret services don’t monopolise them but share them with everybody – openness and transparency will reduce the dangers of the narrow waters and lets us calmly enjoy the view.
In the good old days you could hide in the shadows. Those days are over. Now there is little or nothing you can do, but hope all-encompassing light will chase the fear
away.
