Less Privacy, More Trust

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says that technological advancement has historically struck a blow against privacy, but that more transparency in society creates more trust among its members: “Technology chips away at the previous notions of trust and privacy. … Voice recorders, digital pictures, GPS, Twitter, Facebook and, yes, Google—the sum of it all is that every moment, it seems, can be recorded, stored and retrieved. Much good comes of this—and does anyone really care to go back to the world we had before digital technologies? Yet as a society we have to adapt. One important adaptation is to build trust based not on perfect behavior but on an understanding that people acted the best they could with the information available. We’re not there yet.”