AC guards his macbook
Oh dear. AC Grayling, Prospect’s resident and favourite philosopher, seems a little tired of life. In the Guardian this morning he is to be found bemoaning, like so many before him, the passing of privacy. And guess what? Its the internet that is to blame. Grayling is a magnificent public figure, a serious thinker, and a valuable communicator of ideas. But the truth is that his “luminous trail” – and I wondered, for a moment, did this refer to his magnificent mane of hair? – has been with us a lot longer than he may realise. The electoral register, the telephone book, national health records, child benefit books, the old age pension and driving licences all keep records on us. The thing that is new is that now it is electronic. But apart from that Google simply is not as new as we think.
Let’s not get too hung up on the worthy and portentous words of the Human Rights Declaration, the reason AC writes mourning. Where we might agree is that I see little connection between this and the way we really lead our lives. Of course there should be levels of security on the internet, to prevent identity theft. Of course, people should be able to opt out of the varying levels of high-tech scrutiny, whether it’s Tesco’s manipulation of your shopping preferences or the cookies dropped on to your laptop to measure your online behaviour, as i wrote about in my essay for Prospect, last month. But what every idealistic discussion of privacy must also acknowledge is the benefits of releasing our personal data – most importantly to ourselves, but also to the wider economy.As i argued last week, it’s beginning to get us advertisements targeted more accurately at our interests. And for those who say “I don’t want any ads, thank you,” that’s fine. But for most of us ads served in this way will become an essential part of the economy and may well pay for our TV-style entertainment in the future. (Such data can even help us with everyday concerns, such remember important dates, something perhaps even the normally tenacious Mr Grayling might find occasions to use!) Set our data free, and we gets quicker, more accurate searches on Google, better services from websites where we shop, and a better selection of articles we like from the New York Times, or even the Guardian. Now, surely even a great man like AC can agree to that?
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Grayling is a magnificent public figure, a serious thinker, and a valuable communicator of ideas.
Yeah? Where’s the evidence? His monthly piece in Prospect is like a secular ‘Platitude of the Day’.
Dear o dear, it is so-called intellectuals like Grayling that is the problem in the English-speaking world today. In that Guardian ‘article’ he pontificates:
Only an arrogant member of the British establishment would feel proud of such a statement. I don’t know why Peter Bazalgette is surprised by Grayling’s cretinous opinions, you must know that he is a religous atheist, has friends in the New Labour party, like that imbecile Miliband, and, as far as I’m concerned, this compromises everything he has to say on ‘human rights’ and he is also compromised by his Anglo-Saxon perspective, like this comment he made in his last ridiculous article:
Er, no Grayling, the ‘objections’ are to do with the way the UDHR is applied not it’s contents. People, not of your class or race, Grayling, consider that the UDHR principals are not universally applied by the ICC, its enforcer.
I think the point Peter misses is that electronic data gathering and storage is so networked – unlike telephone directories and pension books of yore – that it represents a difference in kind of information-based surveillance, not merely of degree as he suggests. The fig-leaf of Chinese walls (two metaphors for the price of one there) in the civil service is in fact an admission of the increased risk to personal privacy represented by the digitalisation of records: as is the losing of computer disks.
Safely anonymous Uberkev is a shining example of the lavatory wall: well done Kev, you make my point for me.
As you do mine, prof. What is your beef with ‘anonymity’ om the web? I tell you what, Grayling, when I’m given such public platforms to write like you and get paid for it then everyone can know my full name, until then I will take advantage of the relative freedoms I/we still have to make comments. That’s democratic, you know, Grayling, similar to the ‘anonymity’ that the polling system proclaims, but you don’t like it, do you? You just can’t stand it when some prole has the temerity to criticise you, eh?