June 18, 2009 | Anyone Can Be a Big Brother (or Big Sister)

This is NOT the appearance of the Big Brother you should worry about.

Big Brother (or Big Sister, or even Big Sibling if we want to get P.C. about it) is a damning concept that has permeated our culture since the introduction of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Before the Internet numerous SF fans, conspiracy theorists, the counter-culture and cyberpunkoids have toyed with Big Brother as being the control mechanism of a totalitarian government or a large corporation.

That was the 20th century.

Here in the 21st century, we are faced with a more damning fact: anyone can assume the mantle of Big Brother in our lives. Living in the age of connectedness that we share today, thanks to cellular telephones and the Internet, we find ourselves gobsmacked by the possibility that we were too narrow-minded in the concept of an all-seeing, all-knowing force in our lives. I am not referring to a deity or deities here, however technology has made damned sure that they are capable of achieving feats of that stature.

If you mix the de-centralized nature of the Internet with entrepreneurial spirit, capitalism and someone with a few basic facts on you, someone—your neighbor, a mentally deranged person you’ve pissed off online, your ex, your boss(es), family, friends, nerdlingers—can find out most anything they want on you. Googling people you know is only the first step. There are now sites out there that can dig deeper than you had likely thought impossible. Lifehacker has a list of sites whose sole aim is to allow people to find out anything on anyone, regardless on how careful you believe you have been in guarding your personal information, even if you use those privacy controls in your social networking sites, such as Facebook.

Short of reading your mind and extracting genetic samplings from your body, these systems will pull up anything that been electronically entered: posts on old bulletin boards, newspaper clippings that have been digitized, public records (divorce filings, speeding tickets, etc.)Â and information from social networking sites. I am astonished that these public systems have yet to link into medical records, internal files kept on you by your employer, and the Social Security Administration, but that’s only a matter of time. Such systems already exist and are used by the government, and the private sector has access to these things as well, which makes you pause.

It’s scary, but inevitable and damning. The technology we employ in our daily lives has outpaced our hearts, our ethics, and any anachronistic concepts we have of privacy. You can’t stop information on you from getting out there, but there are ways to control the types and what information can be pulled up by these systems.

My friend Amy has a few suggestions on this front, and there are numerous resources available online to help control what information can be indexed on you. The aforementioned Lifehacker is a good stepping stone, as is the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

You can be scared, but don’t let it paralyze you. Take this as a lesson in paying attention and being proactive in your privacy and connected life.