Recently I got a marketing call wherein the sales person was trying to sell me a device that can be used for an effective spying. It is small device and should be hidden at a place that you want to spy on. It has a telephone number. If you call on that number, the line gets connected after a ring and you can hear everything that is being talked about at that particular place. The sales woman said that “Ma’am, now you can easily know what is being talked about you behind your back”
I was amazed that people are openly marketing and selling stuff that is immorally just so wrong.
A person’s smartphone contains a lot of information for that person – bank information, emails, private chats, pictures, videos etc. Accessing somebody smartphone is like having access to that person’s private life. You just have to google to find out that there are millions of spy tools/softwares available today that can be used to find out every single piece of information from somebody’s phone without even touching the phone more than once.
Parents want access to their child’s real time activity in school using the CCTV cameras with a complete disregard to the fact that child also might need a little privacy. CCTV cameras are apparently found everywhere these days including the trial rooms of fashion stores and changing rooms of fitness centers. At a single click, all the information can be made available to anybody irrespective of the sensitivity of the information.
Keeping your private life really private has become a challenge these days. The concept of privacy has been invaded by the growing technology. CCTV has become a solution to every other problem. So much data is being created using this technology and there is absolutely no control over the transmission of the data. Videos become viral at a lightning speed.
For me, privacy is at two steps. First step privacy is to keep outsiders away from my personal life. Nobody outside of my family should have access to my personal stuff. Second step privacy is my individual private stuff that I need to keep from my family as well. There is my personal diary, my chats with my spouse, friends and relatives etc. that I would not want my whole family to know about.
First step privacy is easier to deal with and can be achieved using proper privacy settings in social media profiles, keeping a check on what is being shared on the outside by my family members, keeping the passwords secure enough, using cyber police as much as possible.
Second step privacy can be much more of a concern and is trickier to handle because when the people from your own family become spies – it is difficult to know and cover that up. The only way to handle this is by developing enough trust and respecting the boundaries. If boundaries are crossed – it should be made clear to each other.
I know of couples who keep their smartphones absolutely open to each other. They know each other’s passwords and don’t mind being checked on. Whereas I also know of spouses who do not share passwords including the phone lock codes with each other. Both the couples are happy with the kind of setting they have with each other and they agree to the boundaries.
It doesn’t matter what privacy settings / boundaries are set between spouses – as long as they agree and it works for them. Same thing also for parents and children. They should also set the boundaries of privacy quite explicitly with each other especially when kids are teenagers. Parents might want to keep a check on the child’s activities, but it is extremely important to also respect his/her privacy.
Trust is broken when privacy boundaries are not respected and when one of the parties feel that their privacy has been invaded. And this is very dangerous because it takes only a moment to break trust but years to rebuild it.
So, time to think – what are your privacy settings with your loved ones? Have you defined them explicitly and agreed on them? Or is it something that is implicitly understood between you and your loved one?
Remember, privacy is an important element of one’s identity and should be handled with a great care.
Candles Online 