Sadly, a day in the life  of a typical citizen is now filled with personal intrusions of which he or she is probably not aware.  With the increasing role of the Internet and the computer in our society, immense amounts of information can be collected, stored, and retrieved incredibly quickly.  While it may have once been unnecessary to waste time analyzing minute details of individuals’ lives, now it is nearly effortless.  Thus this information is now on reserve, waiting for whomever can access it.  Surveillance cameras scour streets and interiors of buildings twenty four hours a day. Hackers, committing identity theft, can not only find confidential information about people, but use that knowledge to access monetary funds and destroy credit records.  A global positioning system in one’s car allows the driver to be followed accurately through any condition.  Digitally stored medical records could be accessed by potential employers or seamlessly altered by anyone in the system.  To a certain extent, one wonders whether these invasions of privacy represent a physical threat or just a feeling of unnecessary intrusion.  But some of these instances certainly cross the line:  when people’s lives are reduced to digitized information, that information is all that they have.  And if it can be so readily modified and accessed, where does personal security lie? 

However, there is no simple solution to this problem.  While citizens yearn for privacy in their personal lives, they also expect to be able to know intimate details of celebrity lives and government occurrences.  Thus a paradox is presented:  where must the lines of privacy be drawn?  One can’t honestly expect to hide his or her own life while having a clear view into the lives of others.  If the government doesn’t have the right to know exactly how a citizen spends all of his or her money each year, how can the citizen expect to be told exactly how the government spends its money?  A certain degree of equality must be applied to the situation.

David Brin, author of The Transparent Society, proposes an interesting solution to this antilogy.  Brin supports a society where nothing is hidden and all information is free.  By eliminating all secrecy from all society, theoretically the masses will have no choice but to become more honest.  In this transparent society, people will treat each other with respect and this rabid protection of our privacy will slowly fade from importance.  Hypothetically, the give and take of society will gradually reach an equilibrium.  A boss will be able to see how inefficiently his employees are working;  but his employees will have an equal opportunity to see him snoozing at his desk.  The IRS will catch you flawlessly for adjusting numbers on your tax returns;  but you will just as quickly note how government funds were used for weekend activities. 

But is this how our society should be?  It would result in a series of blackmail and suspicion that would leave everyone afraid to move, lest they perpetrate another innocent ‘crime’ to be published to the world.  Though Brin’s solution may seem reasonable in theory, it seems quite drastic when applied to a larger scale.  Since people still cringe at having to empty their pockets at a metal detector, imagine their dismay at having their medical records on display for everyone to view. 

Essentially, there is no clear solution to the issue of privacy.  The concept of a transparent society, though appealing in ways, is not something that can gain enough acceptance to be applied to our society in the near future. The best option for now is to be aware of privacy intrusions and of what others are capable in a technological sense.  Increased awareness, a step towards free information, can provide our society with confidence to continue our day to day lives and diminish paranoia.