Digital Business insights: Privacy. Get over it!

In 1999, Scott McNealy was quoted as saying, "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."

That is now almost 15 years ago and what he said was true. Even more so today.

So why in 2013 is anybody surprised about Edward Snowden's revelations? These issues, including the NSA server farm have been discussed openly on Wired for many years. The Patriot Act just made it all possible.

A lot of things changed when the digital genie came out of the bottle and it isn't going back. Privacy or the lack of it, is just one of them.

Privacy doesn't exist in the digital world. It is that simple. So be aware of that and act accordingly. Think "postcard". Anybody who is interested can read it.

Is that a problem for most of us? Not really.

It is an aspect of the new operating condition and just has to be taken into account.

More to the point is whether anybody is really interested in us and what we do.

Mostly the spooks aren't.

But the larger multinationals and corporates are or might be. For obvious reasons.

They want to sell us things and the more they gather information on our movements, buying activity, likes, dislikes, friends, family etc the more easily they can target their promotional messages and offers.

That is how it is.

The other thing to remember and to consider more deeply is that all agencies and corporations with a capacity to gather and scrutinise data are full of people, just like you and me with their whims, their jealousies, their ambitions, their friendships and loyalties.

They are not perfect. They do not always act by the rules. The rules are bent and manipulated from time to time and always will be.

No matter, what sort of constraints you put on them, individuals will find a way to get around them. They always have and always will.

People will use information for personal advantage. Look at the current court action in NSW regarding ex Labor Ministers. Lots of cases like that all over the world.

So why are we surprised?

The major problem with all this is twofold.

One, in the good ol' USA, there is continual movement between government, military and commerce at a middle management and senior level. There has always been a blurring of the roles, there have always been porous walls between these entities.

So is it any surprise that allies at the G20 summit were spied on in 2009 in London? Not at all.

They weren't terrorists. They were allies.

Information was gathered for advantage, political and economic. By the British and the Americans.

It will continue to be gathered and not just by the USA.

As Scott said, "Get over it."

The only difference between then and now, which brings me to the second point, is that one of the by products of continued connection, collaboration and integration is the ability for somebody, somewhere to look at anything and everything.

There are always two sides to things, the good and the bad. Tools can be used both ways. We can't expect to enjoy all the benefits of the digital revolution without recognising the downside.

In the past, information overload dealt with that problem. Even though the spooks had data and information on the terrorists that highjacked and flew the planes into the twin towers in New York, they were unable to process the data intelligently in time to prevent the disaster.

There was just too much data - "noise" - and it was hard to make sense of it.

Today, as the power and speed of processing data increases and the cost of processing data reduces, there is a cross over where increasingly sense can finally be made of masses of information.

Information can be translated into knowledge. Decisions can be informed.

The NSA server farm in Utah has enormous capacity (and growing) and as Super Computers get more powerful year by year, the data sitting in the servers will be queried more often with more valuable results. Because they can.

It is happening and it will continue to happen. That is just how it is.

Is that a problem?

For most of us, not really.

Is it benign? Not completely. But we just need to be aware of what is happening. We can't change it. So use common sense.

Every business and every government looks for advantage. They always have. That is precisely what the Americans are doing. And the Chinese. And the Russians. And the British. And the Japanese. And so on.

The digital revolution just gives them another tool to add to their toolbox for gaining advantages.

Intelligence 101 - political, economic, social, environmental. Everything.

For us, here in Australia, the positive aspects of the digital revolution should be our main concern. Translating and transforming information into knowledge should be the goal for all of us at the single business level, the regional level and for the country.

Privacy? Get over it. It's a sideshow.

- John Sheridan, June 2013.

www.db-insights.com

* John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.

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