Dan's Story: the politics of personal information

The ways that personal information can be shared and the ways it can be used are exploding.

A combination of CCTV, face book, club cards, you tube, web-browsers, credit cards, oyster cards, lap-top computers, reality TV, digital health records, web cams, mobile phones and gazillion other things are creating new kinds of surveillance between us and our friends, the places we shop, the places we work and the public institutions we interact with.

We are no longer watched by a big-brother -- we are all watching each other. The speed of change has outpaced our ability to think about the implications, morality and politics of information sharing. The result? We bump blindly from one information scaring controversy to another, as the boundaries of what we are willing to accept emerge from the darkness. Like when we discover that an employer has been monitoring our web use, when a newspaper prints a picture from a Facebook page, when cds with millions of our bank account details go missing in the post... We deserve better.

How we feel about the sharing of our personal information should be decided democratically (i.e. through proper politics) not arbitrarily by individuals, knee-jerk responses and panicked press releases.

This video draws on themes in the Demos pamphlet For Your Information and features an interview with its authors Peter Bradwell and Niamh Gallagher.

Download the pamphlet, FYI: the new politics of personal information, for free here: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/fyi

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• personalinformation
• demos
• thinktank
• privacy
• metadata
• UK
• datasharing
• informationsharing
• surveillance
• commentary
• analysis

[wakeupsheeple81]

Demos is affiliated to the government so all the scary orwellian nightmares that will be introduced in the near future (many already implemented) are not discussed in full, or not discussed at all. I am a freelance journalist and have been researching this subject for months. I feel this video glosses over many things that need to be brought to the public's attention. Liberty and security can and should be reconciled. Full stop.

[IBMeddling]

I think that book stores should discontinue thier "sign up or pay more" policy. Especially the grocery stores. It is wrong to charge extra to a customer who does not want to be barcoded like the stuff that they are buying. "A free people does not show identity papers to buy bread"

[getonthewall]

How does DEMOS feel about internet enabled fridges, so I am in Tesco and my fridge SMS messages me and says 'Eat bolognaise tonight; buy chopped tomatoes and some mince, you have everything else you need.' Do you think that this streamlines our lives so that we can focus on the important things, or do you think this supresses creativity?