Wednesday 15 October 2008

Online data protection...

There are some that refuse to do online banking because they feel its too risky.  There are people who don't have credit cards and even bank accounts due to a lack of trust.  In practice these days it is already too late for the technophobic to opt out entirely from electronic data storage by the organisations they have to interact with or do business with.  At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who have so many store loyalty cards and are involved with so many Government departments or other organisations that they think nothing of the electronic footprint they leave behind.  Surveillance and security cameras also mean that many people especially in the urban environment are practically trackable wherever they move around. 

In the future there will be more electronic footprints left by more people, more tracking and surveillance by cameras and other sensors and less choice for people to be part of it.  There have been so many recent UK examples of data being left insecurely somewhere or lost entirely which adds to the concern of the population at large.  Fundamentally, most of the breaches of data loss, though enabled by electronic storage, have been down to human behaviour.  Culturally, this is something people have to adapt to.  This means both in terms of perception and behaviour.  The online data train has already left; it is a question of learning to deal with the cargo it carries. 

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