Every tool used by humans can be used for good or evil. It is up to the individual to determine its use. Smartphones are some of the newer tools for modern living. Their longer-term implications for everyday use are as yet unknown. While we in the West, where I see this in Canada, take steps to preserve privacy, this is untrue in China. The Chinese government has turned the benign too of the smartphone into a personal tracking device for its own political purposes.
If someone was to point a camera straight into your living room, most people would be horrified, and rightly so. This is a clear breach of our personal space and privacy. Yet surprisingly this is Ok in the online world. I am unsure why we accept this double standard, other than, “This is how it is and it should be Ok”? It is not Ok. At the very least we should acknowledge the level of risk to our privacy. I will try to assess our risk, here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
There needs to be a fine balance point between sharing personal information on the internet and privacy concerns. I am a private person and thus bias towards not sharing personal information on the internet. Once information goes out to the World Wide Web I know that it will be propagated and disseminated at will, far beyond any one country or individual’s control. Once out, there is no reeling it back in. Facebook is testing this fine line by allowing third party application developers to save the personal information of their clientele. They allow personal information to be shared by default. That’s too much for me. I’ll follow the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s lead and block this privacy breach, and I think you should as well.
Google Street started today, and they sure take some detailed photos.
There’s a pesky grey and white cat at the end of on my driveway. Who it belongs to I know not. It seems to be waiting for the garbage truck, or a taxi. The photo was taken in early spring, because our tulips are in bloom and our apricot tree is showing off their lovely white flowers. It’s about noon time. The image quality of the newly released (to Toronto) Google Street View is pretty amazing, and though I am not sure of its usefulness, it sure is interesting.