farmdoc's blog post number 361

At the start of every single phone interaction I have with a call centre – be it the tax office, an airline, a utility company, or you name it, I get asked those ‘proof of identity’ questions. They irritate the hell out of me. So sometimes – to the detriment of my best interests, I know – I gratuitously volunteer that my dog’s name’s Pete. I understand there are situations where identity does need to be confirmed, but I get these ridiculous questions even when I seek information not specific to me. So, overall, I think the privacy fetish of recent years is over the top. Well over. So you can imagine my alarm when I came across this link. It’s a photograph of President Obama’s 2009 inauguration, in which you can see in clear focus the face of every single individual in the crowd. You can scan, double left click and zoom to any section of the crowd. After a few seconds the focus adjusts. The photograph was taken with a 1,474 megapixel camera (295 times the standard 5 megapixel camera). So now it’s impossible to attend a public event such as a football game or a political rally, and keep your identity private. In the current age of terrorism maybe this technology's necessary. So why does it make me feel less, and not more, secure, eh George?