Peter Bromhead: The privacy myth

Illustration / Peter Bromhead

I don't need the fevered revelations of a couple of Americans, plus our resident German, to understand that my electronic communications might be subjected to privacy intrusions.

Anybody who buys a PDA or computer will be aware of the agreements you have to accept to acquire an operating system.

By coincidence, while a bewitched audience was staring open-mouthed at screen links with renegade analyst Edward Snowden, darkly hinting that "we are being watched", I was at home struggling to set up a new PDA mobile, acquired at a recent school auction.

I lost count of the applications requesting that I agree to share information in exchange for a simple download.

Being naturally paranoid, I started the process by declining requests to share personal data, but swiftly discovered that many of the systems are engineered to make it difficult to proceed to the next step unless you tick the "accept" box.

Bogged down, I reverted from being a self-proclaimed technophile into a bewildered old octogenarian, wailing for help from the caregiver.

There is nothing more humiliating than watching another person set up your operating system in minutes after you've had a two-hour struggle that was clearly going nowhere.

"You just have to tick the 'accept' boxes if you want things to work smoothly," she suggested.

"But look at some of the conditions of acceptance," I protested, staring at the demands of Google and the mobile phone service. "They would like to know my basic profile information and list of people in my circles, including people in circles that are not public on my profile.

"It goes from bad to worse," I added. "They want to inform people in my circles that I have signed into this app, allowing them to view both my email address and basic profile information.

"By clicking 'accept', you allow this app and Google to use this information in accordance with their respective terms of service and privacy policies."

Waving aside my protests, the caregiver wasted no further time, quickly clicking on the remaining "accept" boxes and handing over my latest acquisition, now fully operational and already signalling the local weather and my exact location.

"If you want total privacy in today's cyber world, I'm afraid you'll have to train a pigeon to carry your messages," she drolly concluded.

"I might just do that," I responded forlornly, struggling to face this moment of truth about my vanishing privacy.