Future Privacy

Our privacy is under attack from technology. Well, not exactly an attack, more like a slow surrender. Cameras are so widespread that you can't remove a wedgie without ending up on the internet.

For my protection, someone may be looking at my email and listening to my phone calls.

My teens are being tracked, my dog has a proximity collar and the neighborhood is cradled in a cozy blanket of surveillance cameras. Wow. I'm really starting to feel secure.

What is wrong with giving up a little privacy, for something that makes me feel safer? Plenty.

Here are some technologies that are bugging my privates:

-Internet databases are gathering and sharing my personal information. Financial, medical and internet activity.

-GPS devices. This abused technology will be used more often, and in more places, as gps tracking devices shrink in size.

-Genetic profiling, aka genetic fingerprinting, is a DNA testing method used to find out if you are more likely to have certain types of diseases in your lifetime. There are concerns that health care providers and employers could use this information to discriminate.

-Nano-sized microphones and flying insect cameras are in the visible future. What will privacy be like when nowhere is private?

-Invisibility cloaks are for real and they will only get bigger and better. What will they be hiding?

-Airport security scanners that can see through my clothes.

-Facial recognition cameras.

-Traffic cameras

Technology's effect on privacy will be a major issue in the future. -ffa