I love the analogy offered by Elinor Carmi at the start of this excellent Open Democracy piece:
Yesterday I walked to the supermarket, like I do every Tuesday morning. All of a sudden I started noticing a few people starting to follow me. I try to convince myself that it is probably just my imagination, and carry on walking. After a few minutes, I cross the road and make another turn, but then I look behind me and see that now there are dozens of people starting to follow me, taking pictures of me and writing rapidly, documenting my every move. After a couple more steps, they became hundreds. My heart was racing, I could hardly breathe, and I started to panic. Freaking out, I shouted at them, “Who are you? What do you want from me?” I tried to get a clearer view of this huge group – some looked a bit familiar but I didn’t remember where I’d seen them before. They shouted back at me, “Don’t worry, we don’t really know who you are, we just need some information on you, so we can show you different ads on billboards”. Puzzled by their response I scream, “What do you mean you don’t know who I am!? You know my gender, skin/eyes/hair color, height, weight, where I live, the clothes and glasses I wear, that I have 10 piercing in one ear and that I shop at Sainsbury on Tuesday mornings!” They smile and try to reassure me, “But we don’t know your NAME, silly! So stop being so paranoid, we do this to everyone walking on the street, it’s public space you know…”.
This scenario might seem science fiction to some people, a dystopian reality, horror film or a South Park episode. But for the others that recognise this situation, this is actually what happens every day when you browse the internet.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/elinor-carmi/whose-data-is-it-anyway
Mark Carrigan 