It appears the Blackberry is the latest technology brand to be embroiled in the current privacy backlash.
Last week a number of Gulf state governments, including The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, made the surprise announcement that they were restricting use of the Blackberry, citing security concerns. It appears both governments are unhappy that they are unable to monitor internet and text communications via the handsets.
The Privacy Storm 2010
The Gulf Blackberry restriction is the latest in a long line of privacy issues to reach the top of the news agenda. In July 2010, Facebook incurred a storm of protest from users over a series of changes on the social networking site, that left its members unsure about how public their information had become. In the same month, Wikileaks freely uploaded 90,000 classified documents on the conflict in Afghanistan highlighting cases of military excesses against civilians and details on Afghan military informers.
What unites all the recent technology privacy scares is the surrounding debate on wider issues about how online data is now used in society. There is now a virtual free flow of information on the internet that in previous ages would have been very difficult to reveal and disseminate. The implications of living in an information-saturated world accessible at a click are both liberating and terrifying.
The implications of living in an information-saturated world accessible at a click are both liberating and terrifying
On the one hand, unparalleled access to information and technology has allowed us to transform our businesses to reach new markets, and freed people to communicate well beyond their own locality by engaging with new social groups worldwide. But there is another side the data overload in the Information Age. Previously confidential information can be revealed very rapidly and effectively creating privacy headaches for individuals, business and governments.
On one level, the online information debate mirrors wider views in society on personal responsibly and democracy. The most recent Facebook privacy scare revealed two opposing viewpoints. The first is that Facebook have failed to protect their users online, and that their personal details can be easily compromised. The second view stresses personal responsibility of the user maintaining, and that it’s quite easy to adjust your Facebook privacy settings and in the same way you wouldn’t freely share confidential data on paper, don’t do it online.
Online freedom of speech vs. secrecy
Political and democratic debate raged on the Wikileaks Afghanistan leaks. On one hand we have the passionate defenders of free speech who argue that the leaks have revealed a reliable picture of the real situation in Afghanistan.
However the information freedom warriors at Wikileaks would have a tough job convincing the few dozen Afghan civilians named as informers in the documents who, in all likelihood, are being hunted down by the Taliban following their exposure. What makes their unmasking and possible fate even worse is the fact that the champions of ‘Data-journalism’ at Wiki leaks seemingly didn’t check all classified data they released, it was just uploaded on-mass for all to see.
A privacy backlash?
While you can’t put the online information genie back in the bottle, its scale and volume is fast becoming more of a threat to governments and the military. It’s clear that they are becoming less tolerant of security lapses and free information that compromises their security and selfish interests.
In fact the US government called in the FBI to hunt down the alleged source of the Afghan military leaks and have announced they are confident they have their man – a 22 year old intelligence analyst who freely boasted about his responsibility on the internet.
