Will personal satellites solve the issue?

Well if we start looking at the database that stores data, we realize that it is the source of all our problems, because someone can access all our data, misuse data, use against or for satisfy vouyeuristic pleasures.

So I was wondering If we could all have private satellites, which stores all our data. The satellite is geo-stationary and it follows each individual who launched it. Then it serves us all sorts of personalized services, sends alerts to other satellites in case we get kidnapped, takes pictures of ourselves whenever we want, kind of like our shadow or imaginary angel. Would that solve privacy issues?

Of course, if all the billions of us could send a satellite up, we’d not see much of the sun or the sky. And we wouldn’t have any more energy left on our earth for our daily needs. Besides it would be way to expensive. And we could have satellites crashing into each other occasionally destroying with it all our memories, kind of like an Alzheimer’s disease. But its definitely an alternative we can think of when we are living a hundred years from today, and we face graver privacy issues.

What data about you does to you

• Personal information becomes the puppeteer's strings

When personal data about you is available, inclusive of information such as what you are feeling, what affects your moods, how you like your coffee, while it may offer you personal services, will all allow someone to understand how to influence you, how to sell a product to you, when, and in what fashion. Well one can argue that any communication aims at manipulation. But here the communication can be so personal that it does not allow you to think for yourself, and rather thinks for you.

• Prejudices

Remember the story of how a well-dressed guy didn't get into an elite restaurant cause he wore shabby shoes? Well if any information about you can be dropped at the hat, then automated systems may decide to not give you that second chance which you probably deserved.

• Forgetting to Forget

Since all memories of past and present just become data, one realises that memories change. Its like how you actually don't remember your childhood, but you begin to reconstruct your childhood memories when you grow up as you hear stories from your parents, relatives, see pictures, videos etc. One of the most beautiful things about the human mind, is its ability to keep somethings forgotten for a time being.

• What you get is what you see; what you don't see wont hurt

This applies to systems that collect information about you tacitly, without your knowledge. For instance, when you are discussing something personal you pause to hear if someone is around, or look around for a surveillance camera. If eavesdropping devices were made invisible to the human eye, we would all be less cautious, and less paranoid. But at the same time, we would become the fish in the fish bowl, that amuses another.