Why do you have a burglar alarm on your car or home? Not because you believe that no burglar in the world can get past it. But because you know that burglars, very sensibly, always look for easy gains. The reality is that if someone really wants to break into Fort Knox, I am sure there are ways to do it. After all, whatever was made by one human being can be unmade by another. But when you have Punjab National Bank, why do you need to break into Fort Knox? If you don’t believe me, ask Nirav Bhai. Which underlines my theory that burglars are looking for easy access.

Second answer to the unasked but will-be-asked question is, ‘Just because you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t walk around naked.’ Privacy is not about having something to hide. It is about human dignity. It is the reason we wear clothes, have curtains on our windows and don’t appreciate people peering over our shoulders and reading what we write or checking our messages or rummaging in our handbags, even if those people are the ones who gave us birth, ones we gave birth to or the ones we married. Privacy is about dignity and the right to that special place of solitude and, well, ‘PRIVACY’, that is a fundamental right of every human being.

That is what is being invaded today. Not by soldiers with guns but by geeks; for God’s sake!! Interestingly I am not even sure if the word ‘invaded’ is the right one. If you open your door and invite someone into your bedroom, can you then accuse them of having invaded your home and violated your privacy? That is exactly what is happening to us, as you read this article.

Imagine a world before 2004: No Facebook. Before 1998: No Google. Before 1994: No Amazon. Before 1976: No Apple. In 1976, I was 21, in the middle of my college degree of BA and had just got the right to vote. For us, Amazon was a river (where I went two years later and spent the next 5 years of my life in its basin); Apple was a fruit you got in Hyderabad only in winter from Kashmir; Google was a mispronunciation of what you did in cricket (Googly) and Facebook? Well, maybe if someone hit you in the face with a book, you could say that you had been ‘Facebooked’. But nobody did and that was that. But believe it or not, we lived, we loved, we walked the earth in great joy, we wept and we comforted each other. Our friends were real; we knew them personally and they existed in flesh and blood. We didn’t know what they were doing minute by minute. We didn’t feel the need to. And they (and we) didn’t feel the need to tell each other. Taking the time and trouble to remember and greet is what makes a friendship, a friendship. To forget is human. To forgive and understand is even more human.

Today I read a very good article about the on-going debacle involving Facebook and the “Cambridge Analytica revelations”.  https://bit.ly/2IMJrDm In it is this paragraph; “Even if you’ve got multiple ways to communicate and participate in society online, there is not really a good replacement for Facebook. There’s no one portal that reminds you of your friends’ birthdays, connects you to relatives across the world and stores photos from 10 years ago. Deleting Facebook inevitably means missing out on certain things and having to make more of an effort to connect with people in other ways.”

Reminds you about friend’s birthdays? What do you think happened pre-2004. Friends were not born? We didn’t remember? What happened was that when someone greeted you, you were very happy that he or she actually remembered and took the trouble to greet you. Today, even if they did that, the voice in the back of your head says, “She only did that because she got an alert from Facebook.” As it is, there are many others who remind you including Google Calendar which reminds me about the birthdays of people I don’t even know and some whose birth I deeply regret. So does Outlook and LinkedIn. The only social media that I am on. LinkedIn goes a step further and reminds me about what it calls, ‘Work Anniversary’. What that means only whoever dreamt up this ridiculous thing and God, understand. I didn’t dream it up and I am not God, so I don’t. Why I mention it is because dutifully on every one of my alleged ‘Work Anniversaries”, I get lots of messages from all sorts of people, congratulating me. Congratulating me for what? For still having my job? Well, I can’t help it. I own the place you see, so I can’t go anywhere else. Will someone tell me how I can switch off this silly ‘Work Anniversary’ in LinkedIn? Or even better, switch it off for everyone. Let us retain the value of being human. Remember because we care. And if we forget, experience the joy of making up.

What we are experiencing is the evil of wanting things free. The only way we will get security is when people learn to pay for what they get. As long as we want things free, it only means that we don’t want to know what the real cost is. Nothing in life is free. Everything has a price. It is better to know what that is, because then we can decide if we really need it at that price. Then we consciously buy it or reject it. The alternative is there for us all to see. It is Mark Z and others who are the billionaires. Not FB status updaters, thanks to whom MZ got rich. The reality is that smart people rule the world not because they are stronger, but because the dumb people allow them to do so.

FB has all the information on us, not because it engaged investigators to dig into our lives, but because we voluntarily gave them that information and authorized them to use it in any way they wished. Mark Z’s comment about them is in the article which I have referred to above. Read it and go look in the mirror to know who he called that name. What they are doing is not illegal and what we did was simply stupid. I don’t have an FB account. Or any account on any social media. I suggest you do the same. Get out of social media. That is the only road to safety.

Final point, yes, our phones are tracking devices, even when they are switched off. My question is, ‘So what?’ Let them track me. I am not going anywhere that I don’t want people to know. And if I did, I wouldn’t take my phone with me. I am not that dumb. But just because I have a smart phone I don’t have to have all kinds of apps and offer up all sorts of personal data to them to monetize and exploit. Get off Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and all those that I missed here. Speak to people face to face or on the phone. Meet real people. Make real friends. Don’t get fooled by Likes and Hits. They mean nothing. You and I both know how the internet counts hits. So why bother?

Please understand that Facebook and others benefit by influencing your behavior but can only do that if you allow them to. Do you want to do that? Ask yourself what you are getting in this deal? There are three parties in any deal; the buyer, the seller and the commodity. If you are not the seller or the buyer, you are the commodity. Someone is selling you to someone to whom you represent value and is making money in the process. Is that what you want to be? I know, some people will say, “What is the use if only I, get out and everyone else is still there? I will only miss out on all the fun.” All I can say is that if we each do what makes sense, then we will all be free. Otherwise, wait for the inevitable.