With awards season in high gear, we’re reminded of the streaming series and movie releases over the past year that demonstrate an existence— sometimes dire—without our fundamental right to privacy securely in place.
Increasingly, we’re seeing instances of life on the big and small screen where personal information is available at the click of a device. Storylines are continually normalizing life without privacy with characters being found through hacked records (“Old Dads”) or enduring physical attacks, catfishing, and stalking because of access to a license plate number and $80 for an address finder (“Beef”).
Even when we’re begged to question our reliance on digital devices and the power of access to information in Leave the World Behind, these films consistently miss a critical element.
They brilliantly reflect real-life circumstances of how we live today—fully connected, freely sharing, and using data at our fingertips. They highlight the potential and escalating negative consequences of such sharing. However, they don’t show us how to avoid these outcomes.
Moving toward solutions
One might argue that they shouldn’t have to—it’s entertainment after all— and they’d be right.
Moving toward solutions starts with us. As individuals, business leaders, innovators, government officials, and more, we must adopt privacy actions in real life, so that creators reflect it back to us on the screen. If we don’t, we risk the chance of turning these vivid portrayals from an every-now-and-then reality to a constant one.
Malicious governments have the know-how to transform our existence in a nanosecond. They’ve already breached national systems and interfered with elections. On an individual level, our personal data is being exposed more frequently than ever before. A recent study by MIT professor S.E. Madnick showed that there were 20% more data breaches in the U.S. in the first nine months of 2023 than in all of 2022. And by December last year, nearly 325 million people around the world had been affected by data leaks.
The fact that more cataclysmic national or global outcomes haven’t occurred is simply because those with the power are focused on other issues—not because they don’t have access to the data.
It’s time to flip the script and create a new reality.
There is another way to interact with the world where our data is sacred and sharing is done in secure ways—or not at all.
It starts with businesses asking for less information when engaging new customers and working more diligently to respect—and protect—the data they collect. It involves more government officials advocating for legislation that ensures young and old remain uncompromised by bad actors. And it requires individuals, as a whole, to more readily tap tools, such as VPNs, virtual identities, and password managers, to anonymize data and take control over what personal information is shared and how it is used.
By doing this and taking other steps en masse, we will naturally start to see storylines integrate privacy solutions on screen, helping reframe the cultural dialogue that we currently experience and create a new norm that:
Acknowledges we have a choice
Even though we’ve been trained to share information over the past three decades, it doesn’t mean that we have to keep doing it. For those in control of the narrative for entertainment’s sake or otherwise, we’ll be able to show both sides of the story, helping individuals at large understand in words, visuals, and actions that different approaches and outcomes exist.
Furthers the conversation
We’ll be able to demonstrate the dangers stemming from access to data, but also highlight the benefits and actions of protecting personal information. It may be as simple as movie characters choosing not to share their telephone number or questioning why someone is asking for it in the first place. Or it may be as profound as showcasing democracy still exists because a country’s data and infrastructure is protected.
Puts us in control
By normalizing the use of tools and privacy actions, we’ll start to see the “good guys” experiencing the comfort of control. Grandmas will be giving scammers a run for their money. Teenagers and parents will be reaping the benefits of online safety settings. Individuals who want to be off the grid will be able to avoid the marketers who want to find them.
We’re at an inflection point in society where we can choose to keep going down this dark hole of data accessibility or we can take action to keep more data from getting out.
By doing the latter, we will inevitably start to create and represent a more robust and hopeful view of life with data privacy solutions in place, one that empowers us all to perpetuate a new normal for how our data is shared and used with profound benefits for ourselves and our future—where fundamental rights are upheld and we’re sitting together in the comfort of our theater chairs, in complete control.
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