Our eldest daughter was once photographed for a brochure for a holiday Lodge company she worked for and, although the company’s website has been updated, and her photos are no longer part of their brochure, her photo is still available on the internet.
This started me thinking about the implications of all the information we share with people every day.
I think that lots of us would like to achieve immortality, or live on after we die.
It’s quite straightforward really, all you need to do is just upload something to the internet. All those photos on facebook, twitter, flickr and your blogs will be there (and accessible) forever.
So when you die, people will still be able to view the photos of you on holidays, at parties and anywhere else you decided to share with the world.
This is a kind of immortality and you will ensure your memory and life experiences will live on, but this does have a down side.
Those embarrassing photos of you at the party when you were at university were hilarious at the time, but you really wouldn’t want your students to see them when you became a teacher, and it’s really difficult to persuade your kids that over indulging in alcohol is a bad thing when a Google image search of your name brings up photos of you passed out in the street.
How will your adult children feel about seeing the photos of themselves as babies or toddlers when they have little or no choice about their privacy?
Lots of employers now routinely view the Facebook and Myspace pages of job applicants and there are lots of anecdotal stories of people not getting interviews because of the information they chose to share with the world.
How do ex-offenders hope to be re-habilitated when the reporting of their crimes are available online with News archives?
I may well be sounding a little paranoid with this, but I just think it is worth thinking about any information you upload to the internet, knowing that it is there and available for ever.
What do you think?