This morning I flipped through the weather app on my smartphone hoping to see a sunny forecast for the weekend. The answer I got was the phone asking me where I was. Wait a minute; who are you? My mother? What does where I am have to do with the weather forecast for a location already registered in the phone? Precisely nothing, that is.

This was just the latest reminder of the data that is being collected about us all the time, and that we are apparently unwilling to reveal. The victim of this is already our privacy. Facebook spent several years allowing developers to collect data not only about its users, but also about their friends. Some premium teamwork app services allow buyers to download all the data from people’s workspaces, seemingly without saying they’re doing it. Supermarkets know what you buy and how much. Facebook sold data about millions of us to Cambridge Analytica through an app called ‘This is Your Digital Life’. And now, Apple customers in China are discovering that all of their iCloud data is stored on servers operated by GCBD, an Internet company created by the Chinese government.

An Orwellian view

If all of that sounds a bit ‘Big Brother’, as George Orwell predicted when he wrote 1984 in 1948, maybe he got it right. Certainly, we are three decades beyond his nightmarish vision of the future, but there is no doubt that we are being watched, and in some detail. The problem is that we don’t know by whom.

And the next victim could be that fragile concept of democracy. Did Russia Hack the West to Influence Elections? Who knows. Does the technology exist to make it possible? Who knows that either.

What we do know is that it is possible to be whoever you want on social media; say almost anything about almost anyone without fear of redress. Invent a person; Say what you want. At least some people will believe it. The result is a growth in the politics of hate; the erosion of a consensus vision; of the ability to appreciate that another person is entitled to a point of view different from one’s own.

So where do we go from here?

There is no doubt that technology is good for us. Who would be without a washing machine if they could afford one? It certainly makes life easier than banging your clothes against a rock by the river, although there are places in the world where people still have to do that.

But we have to be in control, as much as possible. We need to think about what could happen to the information we share so freely, that is undermining our privacy.

We must be aware that our phones can track our every move and disable that feature.

We need to think about who will use the information from the social media post saying we’re having a good time at whatever restaurant we’re at, and what they’ll use it for.

We need to spend cold, hard cash at the greengrocer, corner store, or street butcher, rather than at the supermarket, where the constant blinking of cash registers records the details of our lives. (And what does the supermarket care what size pants you just bought? Oh yes, they know very well.)

We have to think about what we are doing.

We need to find out what technology improves our lives and what doesn’t.

In short, we must think about what we are doing and regain control.