The arpanet, or in more contemporary words, internet slash world wide web has always been about security. This was the case in the 80´ies, and it is more than ever so today. Many do still remember that landmark movie “hackers” where a little kid saved the world from an atomic third world war. Simply by tapping away keystrokes on an old fashioned computer. This was so eighties.
But today internet security is still a top agenda dominator. The NSA scandals showed us crystal clear how vulnerable our world of digital communication is. Any security expert will confirm that nothing is safe: your mobile phone can be hacked, your laptop can be hacked (and the webcam turned on and transmitting while your laptop is running), the cloud can be hacked — basically everything that is digital and connected.
With smart sensors everywhere (some label it the “internet of things”) and big data, the situation is getting worse: your whole life is getting measured, compared, profiled, categorized and archived. It starts with health themes like E-Health, health smart cards, GPS and fitness trackers, pulse and blood sensors, body analysers, sleep monitors. It will probably end with a full record of your entire life, how much you moved, slept, drank and ate. Why, when and where your pulse went up.
Against this scenario, some larger companies´ big data push seems fairly modest: simply collecting someone´s individual search history, e-mail, pictures, circle of friends, habits and favourites – for the sake and reward of targeted marketing, attractive loyalty programs and even cooler apps than ever before.
Combine the two and your whole life will be neatly stored, profiled and available, for those who know (or care) to look for it.
Strategies to evade the personal big data imperative will probably be outlawed or prevented at all costs by corporations and politicians alike. Erasing one´s data trail will become a rare luxury available only to the richest people and the underworld. What can you do, if you belong to neither of the two groups and don´t like the prospects of big data and smart sensors? Think twice before you record your life and try not to put “all eggs in a single nest”. And remember: just because you delete or disconnect something, doesn´t mean it´s gone.