Editorial: Footprints and Shadows

Abstract

In a recent Insight Programme from Radio New Zealand, an interesting distinction was made between footprints and shadows - digital ones. A digital footprint is something we create about ourselves, through putting material on the web via email, sending text messages on cell-phones, using internet banking, uploading digital photographs, and more recently by sharing personal information on social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook. A digital shadow, on the other hand, is something created by others about us, and begins from the moment of birth with the "Guthrie" heel prick test, and goes on through life, with passport information, now increasingly shared between government departments (and countries, such as Australia), driver's licence data, benefit records, not to mention the ubiquitous closed circuit TVs in banks, shops and service station forecourts, traffic cameras, eftpos records, cellphone data, and "cookies" placed on our computers by sites we visit on the internet. It has been estimated that now for the first time, the amount of digital information generated about us (of which we are likely to be unaware) exceeds the amount of digital information created by us. And it is estimated to be growing at the rate of 60% per year in New Zealand, with over 75% ending up on systems not under our control. This raises some very far-reaching privacy issues.