Why a privacy diary? Also, isn’t a diary on privacy counter-intuitive?
For a few years now, I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of the time and cost of protecting my personal information. Recently it occurred to me, while having to explain why I don’t like to use a picture of myself in online professional profiles, that there’s an equally frustrating element that the spreadsheet doesn’t capture — the frustration at being both identified (when I don’t want to be) and misidentified (when I do want to be).
In the style of “Dear Data“, I’m collecting here notes-to-self (if I had more artistic sensibility, they could be postcards, but alas) on the experience of trying to protect my personal information. Plus, if we really want to get into it, being able to exert ownership over my own identity, which seems like a core democratic principle?