At a TedXObserver event in London last month author, activist, journalist, and blogger Cory Doctorow gave a talk outlining the ways we’re undervaluing our privacy in an era of full disclosure and 24/7 surveillance and asks the question:

“How do we get kids to care about online privacy?”

Doctorow states that Facebook uses “powerful game like mechanisms to reward disclosure” comparing it to B.F. Skinner’s theory of using social reinforcement to strengthen a desired behavior – Like giving away information.

Making Facebook Less Creepy

Parents and schools will spy on everything in the attempt to keep them safe but this may groom them for an existence where constant internet surveillance is considered legitimate, normal, and good “teaching them to systematically undervalue their privacy years before they reach Facebook.”

When too much of the good internet is blocked by tryng to shield the bad, kids end up not using the tools properly. How do we make Facebook less creepy by not spying all the time?

Tech savvy kids will circumvent whatever walls you put in place as Doctorow tells the story of what would normally be a mundane post about a Cisco router firmware update on a friends blog.

Some girls were having a juicy, gossip packed conversation in the comments section of this boring technology post and when asked why by the author, they explained that everyday a random blog post would be picked to leave comments on for each other because every other online outlet (chat services, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) was blocked by their school.

Network Privacy Best Practices

Doctorow endorses “network education”  — Teach kids network privacy best practices to encrypt everything they do on the internet. Teach them how to use secure Voice over IP connection programs on their phones, for example, or how to use CCTV maps to move through town and avoid having their locations recorded by nosy neighbors who like to spy on others.

Networks should continue to enhance cooperation without damaging disclosure Doctorow states, and “Why do you need to know this?” should be the default position when asked for information.

Imagine you’ve been detained as a suspected terrorist.  Only you’re a U.S. citizen, a university professor, and have a valid passport.

The U.S. terrorist watch list – the party that’s too easy to get invited to, and too hard to leave even when you don’t belong.  But that’s where Hasan Elahi wound up when he was mistaken for somebody else and thought to be stockpiling explosives.

Hasan Baba interviewed Elahi for San Francisco’s KALW radio station and explains that:

He was eventually cleared, but the experience inspired him to launch a project called “Hiding in Plain Sight” in which he photographs every single detail of his daily life – no matter how mundane – and uploads it on his website for the world – and the FBI – to see. It’s a form of “surveillance protest art.”

Elahi’s website, http://www.trackingtransience.net/, is indeed part self-surveillance / CYA and part art project with installations having been displayed around the world and, most recently in San Francisco.  He’s been doing this, uploading his GPS locations and every detail of his life, since 2003.

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