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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- According to social psychologist Saadi Lahlou, privacy will soon be a thing of the past -- and technology users are partially at fault.
Lahlou warns that the combination of technologies like cell phones and surveillance cameras, and widespread computing -- what he terms the system -- will soon lead to continuous surveillance of human activity.
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We are creating a system that will be aware of all that we do -- when we turn on the washing machine, what we write and to whom, where we go and what we do there, what we buy and when, with whom and how we use it and this virtually from cradle to grave, Lahlou wrote in a recent journal article.
Lahlou writes while technology users are concerned about their privacy, they arent taking appropriate steps to protect themselves. He says society is stuck in the privacy dilemma, or a situation in which they are required to reveal personal information to get better and customized services.
To get around this, Lahlou says system designers need to design technology that helps users put the right face forward in each situation -- something he terms face-keeping.
The face-keeping perspective gives designers a positive goal because they can tailor systems to a very specific set of roles and statuses for the user, instead of following vague instructions for avoiding potential problems.
SOURCE: Social Science Information, 2008;47:299-330
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