I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts recently that have been discussing electronic privacy and security.

What’s struck me is that many of these podcasts are hosted in the US, and it seems that the people involved are more concerned about their own government being knowledgable about their likes, interests, movements and browsing history than they are about companies who profit from that information (Google, Facebook, Amazon, supermarkets etc. etc.).

I’m a little confused by that to be honest. Being idealistic, the government are working on our behalf, for our protection, so any data that they have access to is probably fine with me. I don’t think I give our intelligence agencies or police any reason to need to intercept my traffic, and if I do, I hope it would be only as part of a wider investigation into someone else, in which case, again, I have no problem. With that in mind, don’t send anything electronically that could embarrass you!

From a technical point of view, I think the proposals on electronic privacy that our Prime Minister has being making recently (encrypted data on the internet must be readable by government agencies if required) will be hard to enforce, and I’m reserving judgement on whether I agree until I hear more specific details on how he thinks this can be achieved.

In terms of corporate access to data about me, this is where I do begin to get more concerned (in complete contrast, it seems, to the US podcasters). I’m willing to give up my browsing history to Google, but I don’t want them scanning my emails so they can present more ads to me. Hence why I don’t like Gmail. Unfortunately, this does seem to be the future of marketing, and we will all have choices to make about how we use electronics if we wish to remain, at least to some degree, anonymous.

But I’d love to hear YOUR opinions on electronic privacy.

How do you feel about proposals that the government should be able to eavesdrop on ANY electronic conversation (after seeking legal approval) and that any encrypted service that doesn’t allow them access should be banned?

Comment below, or in social media (links at top left), or via the contact page.

Thanks for your time, and input 🙂