You know.... it is interesting when people talk about privacy and valuing their privacy, yet it seems to me that people have failed to realized their privacy is now almost non existent. You can no longer control your privacy any more.

This is due in a large part to social networking sites such as Facebook. It doesn't matter whether you are a member of the Facebook community or not, the fact remains you cannot control what your friends post on their profile.

Especially among younger people there seems to be a race who can post photos the fastest on to the social networking site. This could possibly result in awkward photos of you being posted online without you realizing. Unlike the old days when people used film then took the photos to be developed and the photos would be available for viewing at the next gathering and occasionally friends would ask for a copy of a particular photo. This meant that everything was in control of the person who took the photo.

Now days through social networking sites people post all the photos they got including scanning the old photos and posting them on social networking sites. As soon as they are on line people can copy and save the photos on to their own computer. So even if you complain about a certain photo which may or may not affect your future career someone or somewhere there is a computer with a copy of that embarrassing photo of you.

That leads me to think... is privacy a myth? what about in the future when today's younger generation become the next cabinet minister or prime minister or even local councilor, will we start seeing the tabloids of tomorrow printing those photos of a dubious nature? or maybe even comments you have made? Since everything is in electronic format and with image recognition improving in leaps and bounds the job of the tabloids will become increasingly easier to find those "oooooo, did you know....!" type photos.

But it is not just the tabloids but employers have already started using social networking sites to check out prospective employees, does this mean CV's of the future will no longer be required? You just email your interest in the job then companies will do a search of the internet to find the virtual you?

Makes you think about the current UK government ID card proposals, do they really matter? cos Big Brother is already here, alive and well, watching you, and it doesn't matter whether you are part of the social network community or not, because your friends will be you can be certain they will post information about you whether it is an innocuous photo or comments or something else.

You have been warned.... BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU TODAY