"Privacy" can be dangerous

although I doubt we recognise that or even agree it is the case.

Nevertheless a couple of things have happened recently which has made me wonder about our so-called "privacy". Let me ask you something.

Do you remember the old telephone books? Do you remember those big, fat books printed on the cheapest sort of newsprint where you could look up a name and find not just a number but an address? They would come in two parts - one for "business" and one for "residential".  Now the phone book barely exists. There was a thin apology for one thrown into the garden recently because I have retained the "land line". (I will keep that until I move because there are still a few very elderly people who occasionally need to contact me that way.)

Those phone books were useful, very useful. If they had a phone you could find out where someone lived. Yes, there were a few "silent" numbers but most people just accepted you would know where to find them.

If that did not work or you needed an address outside the area covered by the phone book then you could consult the electoral roll. In this country where inclusion on the electoral roll is compulsory it was possible to find out an address anywhere in the country provided the person was on the roll. There was more information there as well. It might not have been much but if you were looking for the right Mary Brown or John Smith then it was very useful. The electoral roll is no longer available for such everyday purposes. I went into the electoral office a couple of years ago to ask if they could confirm an address for me. I had the address there and simply wanted to know if it was correct. The office person refused to help because of "privacy" even when I gave a full name. 

Yesterday someone called in to pick up some items being given to their charity. We chatted for a moment and she told me how she had just come back from taking a neighbour to check on her sister-in-law. There had been no answer on the phone to the daily call that morning.  Even though they knew the name of a neighbour it was not possible to call them because there was no means of looking up a number to do so. The alternative of calling the police to check seemed rather drastic but would have been justified as an ambulance had to be called.

We are constantly being told to keep things "private" or that our "privacy is valued" by someone asking for our personal information. We are told the information we indulge will not be "shared". All this seems increasingly unlikely to me. Mailing lists are sold to other people, of course they are! I had a call yesterday from someone who addressed me by name but I had never heard from them before. I had never done business with the company in question and will not do business in the future. Asked how they had got my name the person at the other end said, "Well, you are on our books." No, I could not have been. I have never owned a car.

It seems to me we are isolating ourselves more and more from family and friends because we do not have ready access to numbers when we need them. This happens even when government and business can access us while claiming "privacy" is being "respected". I would prefer to be able to be concerned about the well being of an old woman who was feeling too ill to answer the phone.