Information Access vs. Big Brother
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007Are you willing to sacrifice some privacy for personal convenience or benefit? As digital technologies continue to evolve, creating, storing, moving, and sharing digital data and information more efficiently and more securely become the foci of innovation. The dilemma presented is that, while data and information become easier to manipulate, they inherently also become easier to access - by both you and others. Invariably, this is a social problem as much as a technological one, so some argue that such innovation just exacerbates existing social ills. Such is the case with RIFD (radio frequency identification) for tracking everything from products to pets to humans, and its potential socio-economic implications for medical care, national defense/security, and even religion. Want your medical information or other personal information with you all the time? This CNN article from yesterday provides good context to the issue.