Generational Views on Privacy

Wired Workplace was in San Francisco on Thursday covering the RSA Conference. Given my interest in generational issues, I was particularly interested in a session titled "Security and the Generation Gap," conducted by Bruce Schneier, a technologist and leading author on security issues. I expected the session to focus on some of the research about how different generations, particularly Millennials, perceive information security and privacy. Instead, the session focused on the responsibilities that all generations currently hold to protect privacy and ensure individuals, not technological systems, have control.

Young people are used to living very public lives, Schneier said, but they also put a high priority on protecting their privacy. At the same time, while social networking sites appear to tout privacy, they deliberately make it difficult to be salient, he added. And as more and more children grow up around social networking, new social norms will be set. "What the system defines as normal is what a child is quickly going to think is normal, and he'll build his life around it," Schneier said.

As a result, Schneier suggested that it's the responsibility of all generations to come together to either accept the new balance of privacy that technology comes up with, or work to set the balance. For example, he said, the natural progression of setting rules starts with law, followed by technology, corporations, social norms and individuals. "What that means is that people have very little control over their own privacy -- whatever privacy setting Facebook has given you today that you can find and figure out," he said. "The way to fix that is for law to get back in the game. The other mechanisms - technology, business and social pressures - aren't going to work."

"My prediction is that just as we today look back at the beginning of the previous century and wonder how the titans of industry could ignore pollution, our children are going to look at us on decisions we made about protecting privacy and giving individuals control," Schneier said.