Did you think you had Privacy? Think again! Seriously, read this!!

George Orwell was absolutely correct, when in his book 1984, he talked about the Ministry of Information which knew everything about everybody.

Forget Privacy Laws, you, if you are reading this, have probably sacrificed your privacy as soon as you bought your smart phone.  I am unusual these days in not banking on line, preferring cash and cheques, and I don't link things together.  I was horrified when a colleague of mine had her phone ring to tell her that she had a certain amount of time to get to the airport to catch a plane to Sydney.  It even gave the flight number and departure time.

But this morning my wife really gave me a shock.  Smiling, (fortunately!) she asked me what I was doing at various establishments in Sydney and Melbourne.  She had discovered Google Maps.  Marg doesn't have a smart phone and she doesn't use Google Maps, although she does use Google Earth.

The list she showed me was like a bank account.  Some things seemed strange until I realised that I DID have some connection with the places on the list.  But some, I didn't.  I had walked down a city street, and my smart phone had picked up the wifi of a shop or café I had passed.  However there was one café I was surprised was on this list.  I had felt very hot on an extremely hot (40C) day, and I had gone into this café to ask them for a glass of ordinary tap water.  There was NO monetary transaction, no card, cash or cheques.  I have only ever been there on that one occasion.  But that café is on the list.

If you leave your phone switched on, you stand a very good chance of your position being known, what sort of food, drink and other things that you like.  This is just from one app!  Consider what information people have on you if several apps are connected.  I find it absolutely frightening, and more so as it is secret from our increasingly privacy conscious world.

Keep your smart phones switched off as much as possible, or you will end up like Winston Smith in the book.

SMART PHONES PLUS GOOGLE EARTH IS TROUBLE!  Let's hope it's not connected to FB.