Monday 20 July 2009

Without fear of trespass

"The commodification of personal data is an often-overlooked factor in the erosion of community. It explains, in part, why society is becoming a collection of individuals vigilantly guarding their own individuality, suspicious of anyone who comes too close to it. This is the darker side of the cult of privacy, with its belief that privacy is a right that needs defending. That kind of privacy needs attacking. Privacy is indeed important, but if the private sphere grows, the public square shrinks. And as the etymology suggests, that is a privation."
Article in Saturday's Guardian