Column: "Our privacy is out on the streets"

It is a fact: our privacy is out on the streets. I know this because I have experienced it myself. To this day, I still receive calls from people I do not know. It all started with a single advertisement on the internet. I was online when I came across an advertisement about investing. It featured a familiar face, someone I recognized, telling a story about investing.

Because I recognized that person, I thought: if he is saying this, then it must be trustworthy. I entered my details. Not long afterwards, I started receiving constant phone calls. Often from anonymous numbers. Again and again. At some point, it felt as though I was being stalked. I wondered how they had obtained my details and who else had access to them. This experience changed something about the way I trust.

In the past, when I thought about privacy, I mainly thought about my home. My bedroom. My conversations. Things I considered to be mine. Today, however, part of my life is stored somewhere in systems I will never see. I give information to companies, institutions and websites, and then I simply have to trust that it will be handled carefully.

So what is privacy, really, anymore? We live in a time where we do almost everything digitally. We bank online, deal with government services, make appointments through websites and give our personal information to companies and institutions. Your name. Your address. Your phone number. Your email address. Your date of birth. And sometimes, much more is requested. With a company, I can sometimes decide not to create an account. But with the government, it is different. If you want to apply for something or arrange something, you have to provide certain information. That makes me wonder:

How much choice do I really have if privacy becomes a condition for participating in society? For me, privacy is therefore not just about personal data. It is about trust. If someone tells me something in confidence, I assume that I should handle that information carefully. I do not simply pass it on. If I want to share it with someone else, I ask for permission first. That seems obvious to me. But online, trust has become much more complicated.

When I give my personal information to an organisation, I trust that it will remain safe. I do not expect someone to misuse it or for my information to eventually end up somewhere else. Yet it happens. And my own experiences have taught me that you cannot simply assume that something is trustworthy. I trusted the familiar face I saw in that advertisement. But nowadays, images can be manipulated and even voices can be cloned. That makes it increasingly difficult to know what is real.

A familiar face does not automatically mean that something is trustworthy. A professionally designed website does not mean that you are safe. And a voice that sounds like someone you know may not even belong to that person. That is a dangerous development. Because the more information about us that is available, the easier it becomes to reach us, influence us or mislead us. A name, a phone number, an email address, a face or a voice may seem like small pieces of information. But together, they can create a fairly complete picture of who someone is. We also hear more and more often about companies and institutions being hacked and personal information ending up exposed.

Then, afterwards, you receive a message: There may have been a data breach. But what good does that do me if my information has already ended up somewhere else? Who gives it back? Who makes sure it disappears again? And who ultimately bears the consequences? These are questions I find myself thinking about more and more.

There are also people behind every system who have access to information. Take a bank, for example. You trust a bank with your money, but also with an enormous amount of personal information. I assume that most employees handle that information carefully. But there will always be people who may act differently. One person can pass information on. One employee can abuse their position. And one mistake can have serious consequences. That is why, for me, privacy is not only about technology. It is also about people.

Companies want to know more and more about us. I understand that some information is necessary. If I do not provide anything, an organisation may not be able to help me. But where is the line? Does a company really need to know everything about me? And once I have given that information away, what happens to it? Is it actually deleted? Or does it remain stored somewhere? Who has access to it? How long does it continue to exist? These are not unimportant questions.

Digitalisation has brought us a great deal. We can communicate faster, find information more easily and arrange things that used to be much more complicated. So I am not against digitalisation. But progress should not mean that we keep giving away more and more of ourselves without thinking. Because sometimes it feels as though we are giving away the very information that will later be used against us. We give away our own fat only to be fried in it later. In other words, it can seem as though we hand over our own information, only for that same information to later be used against us.

That may sound harsh, but sometimes that is exactly how it feels. A message that appears to come from your bank. A phone call from someone who already knows your name. An advertisement featuring a familiar face. Everything looks more and more real. And because of that, we are becoming increasingly cautious. Can I open this message? Is this person really who they say they are? Who is actually behind this? I notice this in myself too. When someone asks me for personal information these days, I no longer simply think: sure, here you go.

I want to know why that information is necessary, what happens to it, who has access to it and how long it will be stored. Because once my information has been stolen, I cannot simply take it back. You can change a password. You can block a bank card. But you cannot simply replace your identity. You cannot simply take back a name, photo or voice once it has been leaked.

That is why I believe we need to become much more conscious about privacy. Not only as individuals, but as a society. We need to be more critical of companies, institutions and social media platforms.

To what extent should we continue giving up our privacy in order to use digital services? And where is the line? When does something that appears to be voluntary eventually become mandatory? If you want something from the government, you have to provide certain information. If you want to become a customer somewhere, you have to leave your details behind. And so, it is becoming increasingly normal to hand over large amounts of personal information. Perhaps that is the most dangerous part: that we get used to it. That we no longer stop to think about what we are actually giving away

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My experience with that investment advertisement has certainly taught me that I can no longer assume so easily that something is trustworthy. We therefore need to learn not only how to protect ourselves digitally. We also need to think again about what and who we trust. Because ultimately, privacy is not only about data. It is about who has access to your life.

Imagine someone using my voice tomorrow to call my family. My way of speaking. Perhaps even my way of laughing. But it is not me. How do you prove who you really are?

Soon, we may no longer know whether a voice is real. Whether a face is real. We may doubt a phone call. Doubt an email. Doubt a message. And eventually, perhaps even doubt one another. That is my greatest concern. Not only that our privacy is disappearing, but that something else is disappearing with it: our trust in one another. Because what good are all the digital possibilities and conveniences they bring us if, in the end, we no longer know who or what we can trust?

Our privacy is out on the streets. This is no longer a vision of the future. It is happening today. The only question is: how much more of ourselves are we willing to leave behind?

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