Privacy is dead

A friend of mine recently brought to my attention that the South Florida Sun-Sentinel recently decided to 'investigate' local school teachers on Facebook. Like far too many Facebook pages, some of the teachers were, shall we say, indiscreet about what they do away from the schoolroom.

Some of them were 'shocked' that anyone could see their Facebook pages. Idiots.

Privacy is dead.

If you lead any part of your life on the Web -- whether it's purely social networks like Facebook or business-focused sites like LinkedIn -- anyone can track you. If you think that's not so, you're delusional.

The usual story line about this in news reports amounts to "Oh those silly kids! Don't they know they're future employers will see them drinking beer out of their friends' belly-buttons!" The Sun-Sentinel's contribution, if you can call it that, is that they turned its gaze at teachers instead of kids.

If I sound a bit annoyed at the Sun-Sentinel, it's because I am. These teachers were foolish to think that they could have privacy on a social network. I think the word 'social' is a give away myself. But, since when does being a school teacher make one so much of a public figure that a reporter should take the trouble to tell everyone in the community that one teacher considers herself 'a beer girl.'

I guess that's one of the points though. It wasn't any trouble to find this information. I note, with a wry smile on my face, that if you look for "South Florida Sun-Sentinel" on Facebook, you won't find a single person. Funny that.

The sub-text of these stories is that if you don't put anything on a social network you're safe. So foolish. So wrong.

If you know what you're doing, you can find out the essentials about anyone on the Internet. By essentials, I mean your name and other contact information. With that alone, someone who really wants to track you down can be at your doorstep or give your boss a call to talk about that comment you made about your company on that Yahoo finance board.

It's the 21st century, and we're all living in glass houses. If you're smart, you'll at least try to put up curtains in a few rooms. But privacy? Real privacy in the sense that someone from way back in 1998 meant? That's as dead as a doornail.

Who needs 1984's Big Brother? We have each other now. Lucky us.

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