Like, share, and send...but where is delete? It is time to take back our data.

Image Source: Culture Slurp

They draw some analogy with our recent human experience. In the not so distant past, human technology limited us into hunter gatherers living in caves. Then our human brain evolved and so did our technology allowing us to actually domesticate animals and cultivate food and energy sources through herding and farming. This advancement in technology also changed the way humans lived and how they interacted with each other. As a species our technological evolution required people to live in groups/ villages to maximize productive out-put. We started to rely more on other people and the concept of a Community and Communal space was born. We were no longer isolated individuals but members of a group- and as such we gave up a certain degree of independence and privacy collectively as a species. Some people today see the challenges to our privacy as a necessary consequence of our technological evolution- that our experience now is no different from what the entire human civilization experienced before.

Image Source: Matthew Happen

Today our lives are inescapably plugged-in. One way or another, we rely on technology even for the most basic things. Even those people who avoid any interaction with any computer are still in some way plugged-in and their lives digitized in some way. Our personal information is stored in some server by the government, our utilities provider, our bank etc. There is no escaping the internet of everything and giving up a little privacy is the price to pay. In fact most companies who collect the most information are up front about this (see Facebook Data use Policy). They say gathering more information from us allows them to provide better service. The more they know about us, the better it is for them to know what's best for us and as such significantly improve our experience with them and the product/ service they provide. Just like our ancestors gave up the comfort of their man-caves in exchange for fire and a hot chunk of meat- we all should start feeling comfortable giving up more and more of our information. I believe there is merit to this argument but it is incomplete. 

Yes we do live in a world where our personal information and privacy is slowly becoming a commodity/ currency. As owners of that commodity, we give it up in exchange for a service- ie. a free gmail account, a free cloud storage service, a free means of communicating with friends, a very convenient mobile banking application etc. In return, the companies who receive our information re-package and process this information and sell it to other companies (ie. advertisers, etc) who in turn use the information to better sell and package their products to us. It is a fairly straightforward transaction that should not be a cause for concern. I myself believe in its logic but I also believe it is a very incomplete view of our situation. 

Unlike our cave-man ancestor who had the option of running back into his cave and away from the village, we have no way of completely exiting out of the transaction we initiated with these tech companies. Yes the cave-man gave up the comfort and privacy of his cave but nobody took his cave away from him. Our case however is significantly different in this way. Once we give Google or Facebook our information, that transaction is effectively final and irreversible. The information is stored forever in their servers. Although a lot of these companies will say we all have the option of deleting our accounts with them- the reality is not everything is deleted (read Google's data use policy).  Another problem I have with the current system is the fact that we have completely no control on how our information is used, who it was shared with and how. What's most troubling about the system is the fact that we have no legal right to tell these companies to delete all our digital information and to be completely forgotten in their servers. They hide behind two walls right now; first, anything you share and post publicly (for everyone to see) cannot be taken back- as if there is this huge invisible wall protecting it from being touched by anyone. Secondly, anything about you that you shared with your friend and was in turn shared or stored on their own profile (ie. your picture with them, your chat logs, your messages etc) can only be deleted or removed by your friend or whoever owns the page it was posted or shared in. This rule does not only apply to Facebook but to every company that collects your data and sells it to advertisers - read their Terms of Service and Data Use Policy very carefully. 

I believe this is what is missing in our digital experience. We should all have the Right to be Forgotten by these companies. Looking back at the analogy earlier about how our information is being traded as a commodity- as soon as we stop receiving their services, these companies should also stop using and re-selling our information. 

I believe this is the right thing to do and the best way to ensure we are enjoying the benefits of online services like Facebook and Google and paying the fair price. It will be a difficult road towards achieving this but it is possible. There is strong push within the European Union to adopt a right to be forgotten policy. For now though, we all have to be very careful about our online activities. Before we like, share, and send we all have to remember that for now we do not have a delete button.