Data

You are nothing but 0 and 1’s now. Your height, your weight, the color of your hair is all digitized and recorded in massive databases.

Not only is the information you are required to divulge to get a driver’s license or a bank loan or apply for employment but your every movement or post are recorded and added to your profile.

You are being photographed everywhere to be compared to suspects of nasty activities.

What? What about my identification card?

Since I don’t drive but need some sort of identification that verifies I’m old enough to buy beer, I go through the same DMV process to have my mug photographed every so often to show others that I’m the person on the laminated card.

Then DMV figured that was too much trouble and just sent me a new updated identification card with the same photo. Do I look the same?

Is this the image I’ll carry for the rest of my life?

Authorities could check social media, as is so consistent these days, but the images that appear are years old or graphic interpretations of facial identified.

Then there is all that data we give away. What we buy, when we are on vacation, how many children we have, what is the name of our dog, where we live, what we eat, how we dress, what are our interest and hobbies, even how we shop are all available at a click of a mouse or swipe on a screen.

As if someone wanted to dig through our trash and find out my personal secrets, we give our data away by just logging on.

If I moved to another place, changed my hairstyle, created a new website, altered my image, changed my name, cancelled all communications with former e-mails, would I be private?

Or can you get away from those who want to know more about you than you know yourself?