Brett Roberts

CST373 Ethics in Comm & Tech

9/10/2014
Personal Privacy Policy
Privacy has been important to me from an early age. My earliest memories are
telling my parents that I wanted to work as a hacker for the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA). I wanted to be able to access peoples computers from a distance, see their
information, and control their machine. This worried my mother, as I explained my
passion for this dream job. She looked at me after I was done telling her and said, Brett,
you can do and be whatever you want, but you must accept the responsibility.
The idea of secrets was a constant fascination for me. From an early age I would
write messages, and swap the letters to turn them into my own secret language. The
interesting part in retrospect is I really had nothing to hide back then. The thrill was
simply keeping any piece of information a private secret between me, myself, and I. I
distinctly remember buying a plastic lockbox from Toys R Us that had a 4-digit password.
With this however, I took my most treasured possession at the time, a small metallic
marble, and locked it away from my family. When I was a child, I loved the idea of
secrecy and seclusion. As a 22-year old man, I see secrecy as an important avenue for
safeguarding my valuable data.
My immediate family consists of my mother and father who are happily married,
and my little brother who is 20 years old. The extent of my mothers privacy went from a
closed door when she was having an important phone call, to constantly asking how my
day was. My father on the other hand is a 28-year veteran of the Foster City Police
Department. When I was 7 years old, he took me to the police station and put me into one

of the drunk tanks. Obviously, I was a child, and in no way intoxicated. My dad was
trying his best to show me what bad decisions can result in regards to breaking the law.
At the time, as a 7-year old, I was completely transfixed on the idea of my freedom being
taken away. But through this new lens, I see that my privacy was also being taken away.
If I were jailed, I would constantly be watched; even using the restroom would be an
open view through those metal bars. My father was a policeman; his job was to obtain
information that resulted in justice. At one point in my fathers career, he helped a
different citys police force by working as a private detective. Again, a detective could
arguably be the most anti-privacy job next to paparazzi or the NSA. My little brother is
two years younger than me. We did a lot of things together, but we had separate rooms. I
cannot recall invading my little brothers privacy, or him invading mine. We knew that if
either of our doors were closed, a knock is the most basic pre-requisite before opening
that door.
Being a privileged white male, Ive never had my privacy oppressively invaded. I
also, never took a shine to religion. I attended an all boys catholic high school, in which
I liked to keep my religious affiliations (or lack there of) quite private. I did not want to
alienate myself from my classmates based on religion which I didnt care about or believe
in. After high school, I immediately went to college at CSUMB as a freshman. Here, I
experienced roommate living for the first time. Ive had sleepovers before, but this was a
whole new ballgame. This could have been comparable to when my father locked me in
the drunk tank, except this time I had cell mates. We were all in the same boat, a forced
lack of privacy for all freshmen. I am, at my core, an introvert. I crave and need solitude

to be able to function properly. Changing clothes in the room, having a relationship,

doing anything was a privacy-less situation in that room.
From my childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood my views on
privacy have changed. Another thing that changed was technology. My generation
essentially grew up in the aftermath of the biggest consecutive advancements in
computing history. Realistically, I think the mentality is to shut out the terrifying fact that
once someone logs into the Internet, a lot of data is collected about themselves. When
people use the Internet, I imagine they use it under the assumption that their activity on it
is not known. As a computer scientist, its important to bring light to the fact that the
Internet is essentially a glass pane window. Users may look through it, and vice versa.
Here is my real dilemma; does the integration of technology and Internet into our
everyday lives automatically call for dissolution of privacy? Basically, if I want to use the
Internet, or send a text message, do I need to automatically surrender my privilege to
personal privacy?
Besides the general use of the Internet, there are worrisome situations that involve
technology and privacy. A good example of that is Snapchat and Target. A little while
ago, both of these companies experienced a robbery. Unlike most robberys, cash was not
taken by masked thieves equipped with cartoonish bags with dollar signs on them.
Instead, what was stolen was private user data. This form of maliciously used technology
challenges privacy on the digital front. It breaks the de-sensitized trust people put into
companies. People, myself included, blindly throw their private information into the
somewhat secure digital vaults of online corporations. But once the illusion that the
reliability/security of our private data is no longer safe, the trust will begin to fade.

After reflection, I have realized the values that are reinforced or slowly beginning
to dwindle in my life. First, is the fluctuation of trust that I put into things especially
online. These days, anyone can write anything on the Internet, and as long as it looks
legitimate it will most likely be taken seriously. Second, is my uncaring or sense of
empathy. I am a gamer, and from that culture brings desensitization to human feelings.
Like I said before, it is so easy to feel invincible and unfeeling from behind a computer
screen. To feel untouchable and anonymous can bring on a completely different psyche.
My personal conception of privacy ultimately falls to: we are beginning to move
towards complete transparency in all of our lives. We update each other on our current
whereabouts, actions, and feelings. With this becoming the overwhelming majority, I
believe that privacy will become quite a valuable commodity. The only people, who will
be able to retain it, are the ones who do not participate in the system all together. The
only sad thing is, the world we live in today essentially requires you to be a part of
technology and the Internet. With that requirement, your privacy is forfeit.