When "My Contacts" means EVERYONE

The conversation around privacy didn’t start with social media, smartphones or AI. Before the “digital age” really kicked off, we had already been asking how much of ourselves should other people have access to?

For the last few years, digital privacy has focused on surveillance, data collection and encryption, and we’ve seen regulations like the DPA and GDPR attempt to tighten access between corporations and individuals, and as much as those issues still matter I think we’re overlooking something else - the loss of boundaries between individuals, which is yet to be regulated – if it even can be.

We have seen social media blur from a personal social space to a commercial platform where businesses and corporations not only have a personal identity but also access to their customers and other individuals in a way that has never been seen before. For example, WhatsApp is no longer just for friends and family because “My Contacts” no longer means what it once did, “My contacts” now include GPs, employers, colleagues, lawyers, accountants, retailers, couriers and that one plumber you called a year ago. None of those relationships are the same, yet the platform treats them like they are. For the purposes of Whatsapp, my contacts are now everyone I’ve ever had a reason to save their number, not everyone I’ve chosen to share my life with.

Giving someone my phone number gives them a way to contact me, it shouldn’t automatically give them access to my personal identity. My employer may need to contact me about work. My GP may need to discuss an appointment. A courier may need to tell me they’re five minutes away. None of that requires access to my thoughts, photographs of my family, holidays or any other information about my personal life.

We don’t present ourselves identically to every audience, we speak differently to colleagues, close friends and family. LinkedIn itself exists because professional identity is different from personal identity, but as we all know that has also been touch and go lately. Even with the option of Whatsapp for business (which isn’t always appropriate) the problem remains that privacy settings still tend to force people into broad categories; either you share with your contacts, exclude selected contacts, or hide your information entirely. The issue is that doesn’t reflect how relationships work in real life.

Metas encryption may protect what we say but privacy is also about recognising the boundaries between different parts of our lives and it’s time that messaging platforms (looking directly at you Whatsapp) recognise contextual identity as part of the privacy conversation, to reflect how human relationships actually work. Because consent to communication isn’t consent to familiarity.

Just one to think on, JOA Solutions