Public displays of Privacy
Musician and all-round clever person David Byrne explains in his Bicycle Diaries that getting around cities on two wheels is a great way to take in the urban environment. And one of the things I’ve been noticing on my regular commute is the appearance of matt-black stealth wraps on cars. This slow-burning craze speaks to the wonderfully mixed up attitudes to privacy that surround debate on everything from iPhone tracking to behavioural targeting.
Stealth wraps cover a car in a kind of matt black coating, similar to the kind of paint used on top-secret military planes that had to evade radar. Of course, it’s doubtful these wraps can help you escape a speed camera, but that’s not the point. Over and above any Batmobile connotations these paint jobs are, like blacked-out windows, conspicuous statements of privacy. Oh and they can look cool, too.
The idea that “I am important enough to require privacy” is being given extra energy by stories of super-injunctions – especially after national treasure Andrew Marr confessed to a bit of gagging in the past. As John Naughton commented recently, there are two universes developing. In the first, important people get to – officially at least – protect their privacy while in the other everyone else’s personal data is up for grabs.
Tooling around in a large car covered in black paint is like a celebrity declaring – once again – they just want to be left alone. But why shouldn’t consumers be inconsistent and situational about their privacy? One day it’s cool and useful to receive ads according to where I am or what I’ve done. The next day it feels creepy and inappropriate. Consumers like to make a noise about protecting their privacy but their public statements often tend to be more about what they think in principle than do in in practice. Only a minority religiously delete cookies, cover their traces or want to spurn ad-funded services.
Sensible brands are already taking a close look at their privacy policies, particularly with the implementation of the EU’s ePrivacy Directive. It’s likely that consumers in the UK will have to opt-out of cookies rather than opt-in. But whatever consumers do in social media or on their phones they need to feel that, like a stealth paint job, they’re the ones in control of their public identity.”