Where sheep may safely graze? New times, hidden divides

This is a time for coming together, right? No matter what country, political system or social echelon you live in, wouldn’t you think that we could unite to defeat the coronavirus?

Obviously not. And it’s hardly surprising that our pre-existing divisions have been immune from the depredations of the pandemic.

While our attention seems to be permanently focused on social gaps (rich and poor) and political divides (democracy, despotism, right and left), do we care enough about another divide that gets less attention, except among the tech community and a few journalists dedicated to the subject?

I’m talking about a world divided between those who care about their personal data, and those who don’t.

I got to thinking about this when I read an article about TikTok, an app much beloved among teenagers and millennials. What could be more fun than recording a 15 second video on your phone that goes viral in the blink of an eye? Fun, funny and famous. Perfect.

But how many of those delirious users know or even care that TikTok hoovers up your data in far greater detail than Google or Facebook for reasons known only to its Chinese developer?

And anyway, what’s data to a teenager. Where you live, maybe, being pestered by pervy 50-year-olds, sure. But stuff the rest of us worry about, such as credit card fraud, identity theft, unwanted ads? No worries. Not many teenagers have bank accounts with lots of money, credit cards with huge limits and houses that can be burgled to order. Houses might be a worry, but that’s Mum and Dad’s problem, isn’t it? So why worry? After all, everyone’s collecting data on us. As long as no one messes with our mobile phones, it’s all good.

There are lots of grown-ups with the same view. You could call them grazers, as in “where sheep may safely graze”. They buy online. They have maybe two or three stock passwords. The share their holiday pics on Instagram and Facebook with not a care for the possibility that someone might be waiting for them to go away so that they can break in and take their valuables. They cheerfully email all and sundry, and spread their email addresses and phone numbers all over the internet.

Then other are others for whom the enemy is always at the gate. You could call them preppers, after those who build bunkers and stock them with weapons and supplies for use in an apocalypse.

Preppers tear off any paper that has their names and addresses – from envelopes, bills and so forth – before they put them in recycle bins. Anything with personal information they shred. They have sixteen internet passwords that they change regularly. They have the best virus checker and disc cleanser you can buy. They cover their webcams with tape. They know all about governments and criminals that hack into their phones and such up their data. They’re always on the alert for spooks, conspiracies and data hackers.

Before Google, Facebook and Big Data, most of us were grazers. Even in the unlikely event that someone used our stolen credit card details to go on a spending splurge, we felt pretty safe in the knowledge that the banks would alert us, or, if we cottoned on ourselves and let them know, the card issuer would compensate us for our losses.

There are still plenty of grazers out there. Teenagers who know the dangers but don’t care. People who hardly ever use the internet but are forced to do stuff on line, and, because everybody else does, use email. People still trust those who hold our data – governments, banks, the NHS and other safe institutions.

But I sense that more of us are becoming preppers. When we like some Facebook post from someone expressing an extreme view, and the next moment we’re bombarded with political ads. When the government asks us to sign up to a track and trace app that works by recording our proximity to someone who’s infected. Is this an easy way of allowing the authorities to know where we are at any moment of the day, like they can on those cop shows?

Thirty years ago I knew a guy who was totally off grid. He did the books for a small company I worked for before I went into business myself. He claimed to be unknown to the Inland Revenue, to the Social Security people and to anyone else that collected data on us. He had no bank account or credit cards. He only worked with cash.

Could he get away with that now? Maybe, if he was an illegal immigrant or if he worked through multiple false identities. But if he stepped out of line, he’d be caught soon enough, provided the relevant authorities could be bothered, which they likely would only if he was engaged in some form of organised crime, such as drugs, major fraud or people trafficking. It he was able to remain anonymous it would have been because he was small fry.

By the fact that I’m writing this, you’ll probably gather that we’re on the prepper side of the fence, But there are plenty of grazers still out there, blissfully unaware of the implications of leaving themselves open not just to fraudsters but to manipulation and even political control, should our gradual slide toward authoritarian government continue. There are people who would always lock their front doors, but aren’t even aware of how many virtual doors and windows they’re leaving open.

The trouble is, vigilance is hard work. It’s not just a matter of being aware of what is happening. Understanding what might happen is just as important. And so is doing what you can to protect yourself.

Which is why, without becoming paranoid and delusional, we not only need to ask ourselves what those sweet little apps like TikTok are doing – or could do – with our data, but ask the same question of Google, Facebook, institutions and governments.

Because, like it or not, we’re going through a period of massive change. In the 1930s, who suspected that Germany would use IBM machines to collect data that could be used to identify and destroy millions of people in the following few years?

Better surely to understand the implications of our online lives than to wake up one morning to find ourselves in a new reality from which we can’t escape.