Some of the privacy issues surely have to do with a lack of experience, a naivety about the world...

It takes quite a bit of cynicism to believe that harmless status updates on Facebook can result in increased insurance policy rates or credit application denials. When I tell people that ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia -- which controls auto insurance) routinely scans Facebook for evidence of insurance fraud, they think I'm some sort of conspiracy theorist. But if you work for personal injury lawyers, or you know those who do, you learn real quick just how far thse people will go.

For example, people making claims to various kinds of injury have been denied payment because their Facebook updates or photos suggest they might not be as badly injured as they claim. ICBC actually sends investigators out to watch people's homes. If you have a back injury, but are seen carrying your groceries or taking out the trash, it's taken as evidence that your injury isn't as serious as you might be claiming.

If they are having people watching you outside your home and taking photos (like some sort of secret service freakin' spy operation), you can bet your life they are monitoring every single thing you do on the internet that they can legally access.

I'm also told by a friend who works for the federal government that Facebook gives the Canadian government backdoor access via a special login that permits them to see anything you post which is visible to any of your friends. The old warning that you should be careful who you friend because the government might be among them is bullshit. Only private industry needs to create fake friends to spy on you. The government already has access. My pal knows this because she's in human resources and they use info gleaned from social media to make hiring decisions.

But it's not until you've experienced actual serious negative consequences -- a higher mortgage rate, an inability to get a job, a termination, rejected credit card or loan applications, insurance benefit claim refusals -- that you really believe any of this is true. Until then, you'll probably dismiss it as the paranoid ranting of lunatics.

Big data is kind of scary too. Canadian Tire uses your purchase history to determine your interest rates and credit limit. Too many liquor store purchases (or a habit of shopping at discount stores) may well affect your bottom line. And we think that aggregating all the web sites people visit isn't also used to determine, for instance, credit worthiness?

People think that if they don't do anything "seedy" or that if they live a "clean" life, they are safe. But data isn't analyzed in order to make moral judgments. It's analyzed in order to determine risk. If it turns out that people who like to read the Washington Post are more likely to default on their credit card debts than those who read the New York Times, it's quite possible that this simple, morally neutral choice of reading material could still result in higher interest charges.

This sort of thing -- making prejudicial decisions about people based on group behavior -- is morally repugnant to me. We don't think it's acceptable to make such determinations based on race, right? But it would still be easy to deny someone a loan application because they downloaded a bit too much hip-hop. In the end, it's just another means to the same ends.

Ah, well. I probably do sound nuts. Me, I no longer care and tend to let the cards fall where they may. But if I were younger, or had kids, and had a bigger stake in the future, I'd be a lot more worried.

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