It has been another great week when it comes to privacy and I mean this in the most sarcastic possible way. Surely Orwell must be permanently turning in his grave by now.
First we had the confirmation that instant chat messages on Skype are actively being read.
This I find a great shame, in my opinion at the time Skype was one of the ultimate so-called ‘disruptive technologies’
Free and seemingly secure enough to be entrusted with at times our most personal conversations.
I cannot help but wonder when they sold(out) to the Californian big one that it was inevitable they were going to turn and be unable to maintain their original ethos.
Which brings me to the next privacy nightmare.
The police, that institution we are supposed to trust in maintaining law and order in our societies has been caught out in the unsavoury process of attempting to buy your mobile phone data. I am not talking about when you are under investigation; I am talking about the Metropolitan police trying to buy this data from a company called Ipsos Mori. The type of data is: your gender, age, postcode, websites visited and things like your location whilst making a call. What I find most disturbing is instead of investigating (a crime) when offered this data, they (the Metropolitan police) actively engaged the organization and attempted to purchase. This is wrong on so many levels it is beyond belief.
For more information on this incident click the link.
Rem
(the only non-sys-admin in the village)