I no longer trust my cell phone.
It used to be this cool device for making calls and texting people and playing games. I remember the first website I ever went to: Louvre.org. How exciting that was. Siri was my tour guide to the heavens. "Siri, open Sky View."
Now, my cell phone is the bane of my existence. It reports everything I do, everything I write, to whoever wants to buy the information.
It's a digital tattle-tale.
The slogan,“Don’t Be Evil” was a clue that Google was going to be evil. Otherwise why would they have brought it up?
Ever since the government has allowed my ISP to put my browsing history up for sale, its made me less likely to click on any link. I am loathe to search for health information on the oft chance that my insurance company will wind up with my webmd search history and wonder. “Why is Marty looking up ‘pituitary?’”
In olden days, like 2014, I only had to worry about butt dialing. Ah, the good old days.
It shouldn’t have been this big an adjustment since I use google. They’ve made a fortune selling information about me. Their motto “Don’t Be Evil” was a tell that they were going to be evil; otherwise why would they have brought it up? They could have just said, “We Won’t Be Evil” and we’d have believed them.
Now I wonder whether my phone is secretly judging me.
My phone GPS tracks my every move, so I can be located every minute of every day. Or prove where I was, when. People can find out when I'm away from home so they can rob my home. They'll know what's in my home, too, since I emailed my household inventory to my insurance agent at renewal time.
I don't want to have to use a virtual private network, or make sure I am writing on an HTTPS website, or encrypt my emails and texts. I want my phone to protect my confidences, automatically. But I no longer trust it. I knew long ago not to trust it's dictation or spellcheck capabilities, and I realize it was just trolling me. It knew what I meant, all along. Now I wonder whether it was also secretly judging me.
This brave new world of all the things I can do with my phone is useless if I cannot be assured of my own privacy. I have access to the sum total of all the world's knowledge in my palm, and I'm afraid to use it. So next time I go out for the evening, I'm leaving it at home. I can go cold turkey, really I can, doc.
It's not my phone anyway. It's corporate America's phone. Its the Sears Catalog and the Whole Earth Catalog updated for the impatient. It lets me buy anything, from a pack of gum to a car, with one click. And in exchange for that convenience, I get one thing in return. One thing.
What do I get? Naming rights to "Marty's phone."
Oh Siri, where did we go wrong? You used to be my clever friend, but now I fear you've become a spy.
Photo credit: iphone 6 (side) By hurk [CC0 or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons