Fortune: Should Google Know Your Deepest And Darkest Secrets?
By Christian Madsbjerg
Google opens up its Explorer Program today, offering the general public an opportunity to purchase Glass for $1,500. Although spots are limited, the expansion of the Glass club has created tremendous excitement across tech blogs and Silicon Valley — finally, the tools are readily available to record our complete existence, every moment of our lives on Earth, every face we encounter.
And what about the people on the other side of the camera? As they have no legal or political mechanism for opting out of Glass, they can either jump on the bandwagon or stay home: Our entire lives are now fair game for recording and sharing. Lest we fret too much about the prospect of full disclosure, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reminds us that privacy is no longer a “social norm.” It’s so last century, right?
“It’s time to really think—not just about what’s possible, but about what’s preferable. What do we really want as a society?”
Other countries in Europe and Asia have recently had robust public debates about the limits of privacy, and, as a result, legislation has taken measures to address the concern, even mandating shutter-click sounds and disabling facial recognition software. Yet here in the United States, even after the NSA data-collection scandals, there have not been enough extensive ethical conversations about technology and privacy in the national media.
Read the full article on Fortune here.
[Banner image by Matthew Henry via Unsplash]