Would You Give Me A Little Privacy, Please?

The magnetic strip on the back of the driver’s license is more than just a means for law enforcement to validate your history of traffic violations. It gives access to a whole slew of data – personal data. Much of the information is helpful to identify a person’s medical history. Other data includes the name, the given address (it may have changed without notification to the DMV), physical characteristics and organ donor information. It also makes available a person’s age to verify they are of drinking age, used by restaurants, bars and liquor stores. In that respect, it provides a way for an establishment, say a dance hall, to get the person through the door, on the floor and imbibe du jour, the ultimate goal for profitable patronage.

A quick wipe of the card is supposed to be confidential, not available to be used illegally by recording the encoded data, although it can by supplemented to look up personal details through other data collection services such as Experian and Choicepoint, including other agencies that collect and retain personal consumer information.

No matter what a person buys or where they apply their purchase power, it’s well known there are tracking methods that give creditors a view of past items charged with plastic money. It’s only a marketing tool, right? For the most part, yes, but the risk of computer hackers to use private information for fraud and identify theft is of major concern. But when you use that credit card, or debit card, you should already know that a good part of the data is transferred to other links in the financial interests unless the opt-out box is checked on the application. Still, within the vast network of subsidiaries of any given banking establishments it can be, and will be, shared. Either way, they’re happy to be included on your preferred list of trusted creditors.

Websites are a specific point where the tracking of a person’s purchases (and previously viewed items) can direct you to similar selections of interest. They know where you’ve been and where you should go to further spend your consumer-driven credit. Of course, it’s all in your best interest… and theirs. Many sites even offer their own credit cards with a one-time discount and selective perks if more widely used; hook, line and sinker.

Wouldn’t you just love to list your own Terms and Conditions, and more important, make up your very own Privacy Notice? Consumer’s rights are restricted to purchasing power.

So, your personal data and past purchases are very well tracked. So are those entries in the likes of Facebook, YouTube and MySpace. If the sole intention is to keep in touch with friends and relatives, you still bare a bit of your soul with written words, pictures and videos. Once you’ve made such an imprint on the Web and you don’t know for sure where else it may wind up in the worldwide network. I call it the Inet: the information network.

To what other extremes have information technologies taken away the privacy of an individual’s life? The GPS system that has transformed the safety of a driver and steer him in the right direction also makes it available for interested parties to track every stop and turn along a journey through SPOT satellite GPS messenger service. It comes at a price but it allows friends and family access to a traveler’s whereabouts anywhere around the world, unlike the limitations of cellular service. And it’s updated every five minutes! It provides the driver with general information assistance and emergency services through local police, state highway patrols and the Coast Guard. It’s got ya covered!

Satellites provide a whole different range of opportunities that invade upon the privacy of people, places and things. GOOGLE and Yahoo! each have a network of satellites that zoom in on locations just about anywhere, most of which is not “real time” imagery; some are years in the past so don’t expect to see yourself waving to the camera in the sky.

GOOGLE makes the most use of geographic information system technology. You’ve got Google Maps with high-definition images from aerial photography, with anything from zoom to wide-angle views of a designated location.

My Maps let’s users and businesses create an overlay that can assist in the planning of a subdivision or a business of any size and nature. Just think how Wal-Mart at this very moment may be in the process to position itself for a location between a rock and a hard-place – Wal-Mart can move mountains, right?, or at the very least do what it can to fit in any environment it chooses.

GOOGLE can blur out military installations and other areas of security, the White House for instance. The National Weather Service even uses GOOGLE services for local weather forecasting. GOOGLE Transit can plan a whole trip using public transportation routes. Street View gives a 360-degree panoramic street level view of various U.S. cities, with Canada in near eyesight. Technology marches on.

Otherworldly-views at GOOGLE Moon (www.google.com/moon) show Apollo landing site images and pinpoints astronaut activities. As if that’s too close to home and you want a bit more adventure, GOOGLE Mars (www.google.com/mars) shows a color-coded elevation screen. You can zoom in on mountains, canyons, dunes, craters and more, then take a moment to gather information on when the photo was taken by whatever mission. On either site, if you drag the hand cursor in any direction you’re on your way along the celestial body’s surface!

Satellites provide some pretty amazing stuff but technology marches on in different directions.

Take for instance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Going back to 1883 when an Englishman was the first to take photos from the wings of a kite as a novelty, drones have been increasingly used for military surveillance and gathering of meteorological data. Although big and bulky in today’s world of high-end technology, the US has developed an MAV (micro aviation vehicle) to a weight of 2-ounces and a dimension of 6-inch square, called the Black Widow.

MAVs are a relatively new technology. They’re small, some the size of dragonflies, and some of those with spheres as small as berries attached to the tails, and at times seen maneuvering in unison in what appears to be a flight formation – very uncharacteristic of insects. They don’t look quite lifelike yet with metallic casings and mechanical but movable antennae; synthetic wings buzz at the speed of 120 flaps per second.

Live insects have been imbedded with silicon computer chips and used to keep surveillance on suspected felons, navigate through collapsed building in search of survivors. Rather than relying on batteries, liquid fuel is turned into a gas that increases the range of deployment and reliability for reuse. Which doesn’t mean they can’t get eaten by birds and caught in spider webs.

There’s no telling for sure what the next steps technical engineering will develop. Most likely, small will become miniature, then transformed into tiny if not microscopic. Don’t be fooled, someday you might find yourself purchasing a high-definition television with nearly invisible dots that watch your every move, with audio sensors that eavesdrop on your private conversations, streamlining through data cable to a control center hundreds of miles away. Yes, your every move you make will become a target of surveillance.

By George, it’s all Orwellian! Don’t you just wish could go back to 1984 and regain a little bit of your the privacy? But then again, going back to an era long in the past, the Trojan Horse was a telltale sign of things to come.