New technology seems to have changed the meaning of privacy, affording individuals the possibility of sharing details of their hitherto private lives in unprecedented ways, from personal blogs to picture sharing and even ‘social bookmarking’. For many of us, divulging intimate details of our private lives via social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook has become the norm. But information and communication technologies have also facilitated surveillance and data gathering by government and big businesses. While in some contexts we seem so ready to give up our privacy, in others we seem increasingly anxious to protect it.
To what extent are new technologies responsible for the death of privacy? Are privacy concerns simply technophobic, or are we right to worry about a loss of control over personal information? Have new technologies and our enthusiastic adoption of them actually transformed our notions of public and private, and blown apart the wall dividing the two? Why do we worry about Tesco monitoring what we buy, when, according to Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy: ‘You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it’?
 | Professor Jeffrey Rosen professor of law, George Washington University; legal affairs editor, The New Republic; author, The Unwanted Gaze |
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 | Professor Anne Anderson OBE director, ESRC/EPSRC/DTI People @ the Centre of Communication & Information Technology Research Programme; member of RAEng working group on Dilemmas of Surveillance |
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 | Rob Killick CEO, cScape; author, UK after the recession |
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 | Tessa Mayes investigative journalist; author, Restraint or Revelation? Free speech and privacy in a confessional age |
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 | Tim Smart CEO, King’s College Hospital NHS FT; former CEO, BT Global Services UK |
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 | Phil Mullan economist; UK Managing Director of Easynet Global Services, the global corporate communication services company; author The Imaginary Time Bomb |
| Dr Shirley Dent associate fellow, Institute of Ideas; director, Battle Satellites programme; columnist at Guardian Unlimited Arts; blogger, Independent Minds; co-author Radical Blake | |
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| Alex Hochuli MPhil student in sociology, University of Kent at Canterbury; co-founder Institute of Ideas Current Affairs Forum. | |
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| Martyn Perks design consultant; speaker and writer on design, technology and innovation. | |
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| Simon Belt IT consultant; co-organiser, Manchester Salon | |
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 | recommended by spiked |
