Privacy; Do we have it? With the news today that the NSA is now collection millions of faces from web images and using face recognition software on them , I think the answer to the first question is clearly, no. For the all the ballyhoo about government spying, most of us are our own worst enemies. Most people in the Western world, me included, have huge digital footprints. Probably bigger than we even realize.
I remember the early days of admitting that I regularly Google myself and the titters as if that was a vaguely dirty thing to do. People tend to use the same photos for multiple purposes, so the photo that cute guy has used on Match. And what do you know, when I Google that photo and find his Facebook page, I see what a charming couple he and his wife Susan make and how thrilled they are to be celebrating their 10 th wedding anniversary. It never ceases to astound me how easy it is to get some pretty identifying information on people very quickly and easily.
It particularly amazes me when these people are clearly trying to cheat on a spouse or are lying about some other aspect of their lives. I cannot tell you how many men contact me online who are using photos of Bollywood actors as their profile photos and passing them off as their own. Yes, Bollywood actors seem to be the fake photos of choice, not sure why. So what? People lie, they always have. What is new is how easy those lies are to expose most of the time.
I choose to write for this blog on a regular basis even though I realize that it exposes me to a certain degree and increases my digital footprint and so reduces my privacy.
This is worrying. I represent myself accurately online to the best of my ability, including to men I might date. Skip to content. The Walls of Jerusalem.
