Disturbing trends in technology

I listened with interest today to a show on NPR that described developments in "apps" for iPhone and other mobile devices of its ilk. They began talking about handheld devices being able to recognize buildings, which would be a pretty handy device for persons with impaired vision.

So far, nothing to be alarmed about. However, they moved from that concept to speaking about face recognition software being integrated into those same devices. Considering all of the information that is already available about us on the internet, it dawned on me that this technology is going to eliminate the concept of personal privacy.

One quick scan for whatever reason, perhaps initially innocuous, by someone standing near enough to get a decent electronic glimpse of your facial features, and voila! Seconds later, they know your political affiliation, where you live, where (or if) you work, how many marriages you have had and/or children (and perhaps all of your collective SSNs), your medical history, any arrests you may have experienced, who you bank with and who insures your home and other personal effects, what car you drive (and its license plate number), how many times it has been in for service or in an accident, your education level and class standing, (and for the ladies who constantly lie about their age) your DOB, and any number of other tidbits that are then currently available for public consumption if they know the right places to look.

I know... some of you will say "I have nothing to hide and don't care what they know." Don't you? How many of those persons using such devices are going to have distinctly nefarious purposes for their scanning? If you think you will be immune to crimes that could be perpetrated by someone who has the ability to find out everything there is to know about you, then you are sadly delusional.

Let's say, for instance, that your home security system is connected to an external service and that service monitors your instances of being away from home through recognizing your input codes to activate the system. In the course of perhaps weeks or months, they are able to pin down a pattern to your comings and goings. Now, suppose that you advertise in your front window with a certain security company's sticker or yard sign that your home is protected by ABC Co. Now that you have narrowed the list down to a single company for the crooks, all they have to do is compromise that single company's system integrity and they can know when you are normally not at home, decreasing their chance of being surprised while in your domain relieving you of all your hard-acquired goods. If they are really good at cracking the system's security, they may even get access to your personal security code, eliminating the chance that your security company would even become suspicious and notify the legal authorities. So, they can languish a while as they decide what is of value and what's not. No need to rush. They know about what time you will return.

Of course, that is only one side of the coin. Maybe you are an elected official, or a judge, and through execution of your official duties, you have made some dangerous enemies. Or maybe your company underbid another for an extremely lucrative contract and an overzealous competitor wants revenge. Now, they would want to know when you ARE home so chances of exacting that revenge are more likely to succeed. Sure, these examples have to reach far for crediblity, but no one can deny the possibility for such extreme abuses DO exist. As this technology is developed further and becomes widely accepted and used, the chances for people who may have mayhem on their minds to come up with ideas such as I am outlining are going to be more commonplace than any of us might want.

Is there any way to protect ourselves from the abuses technology such as this is subject to? Only to the extent that we take measures to protect our identities and/or likenesses from being divulged for ANY reason by companies, or agencies, with whom we do business or with whom we have personal interaction, and... only to the extent that their computer systems are immune to attacks from outside agents who are bent on getting access.

Selling information about you is a huge business to many corporations. For some corporations, it is their entire income stream. Stopping the trafficking of information about you is very much akin to the little boy with his finger in the hole that penetrates the dike. Nevertheless, we are foolish to allow such practices to continue.

If your family's health and financial well-being is any concern to you, then it is your responsibility to voice your concerns to anyone who will listen, beginning with your state representatives. I know politicians are good for very little and will promise you stardust for a vote, but we can't simply sit back and do nothing any longer.

There's far too much at stake.