You have to consider who you are trying to hide from. Hiding something in the face of an active pursuer is an act of aggression or at least, counter-aggression. In warfare there is the concept of enemy combatant. An ethical force will adhere to the idea that they only actively pursue and disable combatants not merely resistors, demonstrators or those taking countermeasures to protect themselves.
Some people may be combatants by things other than actions of violence. Wearing an enemy uniform even if you are not holding a rifle or actively participating in a battle, spying, providing serious material aid to the combatants etc.
I think these are apt comparisons to privacy and personal information because having them is a sort of ephemeral habeas corpus (I'm aware of the contradiction). You 'have the person' (that's what habeas corpus literally means) in a digital/information sense. Of course there's no exclusivity as there is with an actual bodily person.
Warfare is ultimately about controlling the bodies - you kill the bodies and then you win. If more of your bodies are standing or if more of their bodies can be convinced to stop fighting or to come over to your side or just lose the will to fight then you win (trying to encompass more than just battlefield warfare here which is quickly becoming less important)
So this very long winded setup is just to say that the "future of personal identity cleanup" is an oxymoron or at least a contradiction. "Hiding" whether digitally or otherwise is an ACTIVE thing. I guess the cleaning concept is useful to a degree. If I clean my kitchen then it stays clean...until I make dinner the next night - which, because I need to eat, I will inevitably do. And then it's just as messy and requires just as much effort as it did previously to clean.
So unless you are dead, you can't just clean up your digital trail and be done. This is assuming that you want to go about living a relatively normal life and not smuggle yourself to an uninhabited island.
So the future of digital privacy will be a series of compromises and trade offs. I don't want to be at all disrespectful about the situation in Syria because it is grief ridden disaster but I think this illustration is a good one.
There are still people in Syria. You may think to yourself, "Why are people still in Syria? People with families". Because some people can't leave, some people don't think it's that bad for any number of reasons such as blind luck, blind faith or any other form of blindness. Regardless they are still there.
And that's how digital privacy is. Most people won't care which means there won't be a demand which means you will stand out when you do demand (to be not seen)
This is too long.
TLDR:
1: TOOLS - tools to help you just like new kitchen gadgets. Some will be fads, some will be workhorses like the classic kitchenaid mixer and others will be just for pros or people with a passion for it.
2. KNOWLEDGE - Knowing how to hide what you really want to hide. This is going to be helped more and more by tech. People who don't want to hide anything won't ever know about these but those who do will. Starts with VPNS, separate accounts, never bringing a device with an EMF signal to certain places, how to use strong encryption etc. but includes basic digital tradecraft.
3: COMPROMISE - Don't ever use social media. Or do and realize that part of your life is never going to get a privacy cleanup. It's the fryolator of your digital life. Makes things delicious, unhealthy and never clean. Other compromises and realizing that just like credit, it's hard to repair mistakes in digital privacy.
The question is so simple. . . . I wish the answer was. Sorry this is so rambling. I was going to include a why you should listen to me section but then I'd have to tell you who I am.
Some people may be combatants by things other than actions of violence. Wearing an enemy uniform even if you are not holding a rifle or actively participating in a battle, spying, providing serious material aid to the combatants etc.
I think these are apt comparisons to privacy and personal information because having them is a sort of ephemeral habeas corpus (I'm aware of the contradiction). You 'have the person' (that's what habeas corpus literally means) in a digital/information sense. Of course there's no exclusivity as there is with an actual bodily person.
Warfare is ultimately about controlling the bodies - you kill the bodies and then you win. If more of your bodies are standing or if more of their bodies can be convinced to stop fighting or to come over to your side or just lose the will to fight then you win (trying to encompass more than just battlefield warfare here which is quickly becoming less important)
So this very long winded setup is just to say that the "future of personal identity cleanup" is an oxymoron or at least a contradiction. "Hiding" whether digitally or otherwise is an ACTIVE thing. I guess the cleaning concept is useful to a degree. If I clean my kitchen then it stays clean...until I make dinner the next night - which, because I need to eat, I will inevitably do. And then it's just as messy and requires just as much effort as it did previously to clean.
So unless you are dead, you can't just clean up your digital trail and be done. This is assuming that you want to go about living a relatively normal life and not smuggle yourself to an uninhabited island.
So the future of digital privacy will be a series of compromises and trade offs. I don't want to be at all disrespectful about the situation in Syria because it is grief ridden disaster but I think this illustration is a good one.
There are still people in Syria. You may think to yourself, "Why are people still in Syria? People with families". Because some people can't leave, some people don't think it's that bad for any number of reasons such as blind luck, blind faith or any other form of blindness. Regardless they are still there.
And that's how digital privacy is. Most people won't care which means there won't be a demand which means you will stand out when you do demand (to be not seen)
This is too long.
TLDR:
1: TOOLS - tools to help you just like new kitchen gadgets. Some will be fads, some will be workhorses like the classic kitchenaid mixer and others will be just for pros or people with a passion for it.
2. KNOWLEDGE - Knowing how to hide what you really want to hide. This is going to be helped more and more by tech. People who don't want to hide anything won't ever know about these but those who do will. Starts with VPNS, separate accounts, never bringing a device with an EMF signal to certain places, how to use strong encryption etc. but includes basic digital tradecraft.
3: COMPROMISE - Don't ever use social media. Or do and realize that part of your life is never going to get a privacy cleanup. It's the fryolator of your digital life. Makes things delicious, unhealthy and never clean. Other compromises and realizing that just like credit, it's hard to repair mistakes in digital privacy.
The question is so simple. . . . I wish the answer was. Sorry this is so rambling. I was going to include a why you should listen to me section but then I'd have to tell you who I am.