Apple has recently made changes so that now we know which app is looking at which data. Governments and activists across the world continue to demand that Big Tech protect our privacy. Even if none of it is criminal in any way. We live in the belief that a part of us - even the part which finds expression on our phones - will remain hidden from the world. We donвЂ™t say to ourselves, let me go ahead and publish this, Google and Facebook will see it anyway. We donвЂ™t publish our texts - those that we type and send and those that we type but never send - on Instagram or Twitter. We donвЂ™t publish our search history on our Facebook feed. While Big Tech may well be getting access to all of it there is a reason that we donвЂ™t put every photograph we have on our Facebook feed. Privacy attaches to the person since it is an essential facet of the dignity of the human being.вЂќ - Supreme Court of India in Justice K.S. While the legitimate expectation of privacy may vary from the intimate zone to the private zone and from the private to the public arenas, it is important to underscore that privacy is not lost or surrendered merely because the individual is in a public place.

Privacy protects heterogeneity and recognises the plurality and diversity of our culture. Personal choices governing a way of life are intrinsic to privacy. Privacy safeguards individual autonomy and recognises the ability of the individual to control vital aspects of his or her life. Privacy also connotes a right to be left alone. вЂњ Privacy includes at its core the preservation of personal intimacies, the sanctity of family life, marriage, procreation, the home and sexual orientation. The smartphone is also our private diary, an album of photographs of everyone we know - our partners, our children. We can click on an image, enlarge it and spend four seconds looking at it - it could be something we would feel embarrassed about even if it was in our closest or our most intimate friend knew about. We may feel fear or desire which we want to read more about on the internet. Over the past decade the вЂsmartphoneвЂ™ has, in a way, become an extension of our internal dialogue. I have many thoughts that I would like to keep to myself IвЂ™m sure you do too. Our internal dialogue is perhaps the most private part of our вЂselfвЂ™.

If the use of such technology was put to vote, how would you vote? Many seemingly-persuasive excuses can be offered: Crime control, national security and so on. Imagine if in your lifetime, the government acquired such technology and mandated that every citizenвЂ™s brain be linked to it. Not just to sense an emotion, such as euphoria/despair/anxiety, but specifically read thoughts such as вЂI would like to eat an appleвЂ™ or вЂI feel sexually attracted to my friendвЂ™s husband RameshвЂ™. Scientists of various affiliations (independent, corporate, government) continue to research technology that could one day read our mind.

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