Most of us can pinpoint a moment when we realised that what we did and said online mattered more than just in the moment.
Maybe it was wondering why ads for things we had looked at kept following us around the web, or why spammers knew our names and email addresses.
More drastically, maybe you were hacked, or had someone snoop in an account you’d forgotten to log out of.
Or maybe it was simply finding traces of old, long-forgotten (and inevitably embarrassing) accounts you’d erased from your memories, if not the web – and the accompanying dawning of the permanence of our digital selves.
For most of us, that dawning awareness simply prompted us to be more alert and careful with no ongoing consequences, but for some job opportunities and more were already ruined.
Whatever prompted your digital privacy awakening, the Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to hear about it for their new project.
In their words: “We’re collecting stories from people about the moment digital privacy first started mattering in their lives. Through this collection, we’re hoping to illustrate the varied, often deeply personal reasons that people care about digital privacy.
“This isn’t a dry policy issue; corporate data practices have lasting ramifications on people’s everyday lives. And the recent vote by Congress to allow companies like Comcast and Time Warner to have unfettered access to our browsing habits puts our privacy even more at risk.”
To add to the conversation, post a blog post, article, tweet, or short video, and then share it on Twitter using the hashtag #privacystory.
The EFF will collate them, collecting these, blogging about them and retweeting them to “help spur a broader public conversation about the value of privacy in our digital world.”
Digital privacy matters now and forever – so get involved and share your story to help others.