The Illusion of Privacy
Last week Mark Zuckerberg spent two days testifying before the Senate in response to a massive data breach, which exposed the private information of some 87 million users. During the hearing, Senator Durbin (IL) asked if he would share on national television. the name of the hotel he was staying at and the names of the people he had texted that day. His answer was a very uncomfortable no.
For most of the 20th century, and even more so after 9/11, concerns of government surveillance of private citizens waxed and waned. Who knew that the “nanny state” would come in the form of private businesses collecting data to share with advertisers? Companies like Facebook and Google gather a staggering amount of information about our everyday lives. Understandably this raises concerns about privacy.
What if you knew that everything you did, every word you spoke, and every place you went was being watched? What if you knew that all that information would one day be shared publicly? Would that change the things you do? The fact is, this has always been the case. “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). God knows our every thought, and our every action. One day all our secrets will be laid bare (1 Corinthians 4:5). We should live every day so that we don’t need to worry about the world knowing where we’ve been.
