Comment by cortesoft

I really think the entire concept of privacy has really changed in my lifetime, especially around what needs to be kept private and what we don’t mind sharing.

When I was a youth in the 80s and 90s, it seems like our desire for privacy was focused on what we were doing and talking about; we didn’t want people to know our activities or what our conversations were about. Someone listening in while you talked to someone else was considered an invasion of privacy. However, we freely shared identifying information and didn’t think that was something that needed to be protected. In my town, our phone book white pages had everyone in town’s name, phone number, and address. Those details weren’t things we thought needed to be kept hidden from the public. Every now and then you would hear about someone who was “unlisted”, but that was considered odd.

Now, people will freely post pictures about their activities in public places, have public conversations, and share all sorts of details about how they live their lives that we would never have shared with strangers 40 years ago. At the same time, the idea of publishing our name, address, and phone number for everyone to see is horrifying. We even have a term for it, “doxing”, which many people want to make a crime, and we would never have even thought about it 40 years ago.

I think there are a ton of valid reasons for this shift, but it does make me think. A major part of why we want to keep those details private is because we have created so many systems that allow you to commit fraud or take advantage of people with only those details. While I think we should maintain and extend our ability to keep those details about us secret, I also think we need to do something about the systems we have in place that allow you to do so much damage to a person with only knowing these basic details about them.