Am I free? All freedom is relative (though it’s no relative of mine; I know all my relatives by name).
Am I free, when all my text messages and ‘phone calls are monitored and recorded (and may be used – trans. will be used) for training purposes? Who records and keeps these personal calls and texts? I don’t know them. Are they in this country? In the cloud? In a foreign country? I have no access to the data and have no idea where it resides and for how long.
Am I free, when all my emails are read and stored by an unknown entity? All my thoughts and comments are scanned by ‘bots using AI looking for provocative keywords and other clues.
Am I free when I go on a train, taxi or bus and a notice informs me that CCTV images are being used ‘for my safety’? Who keeps these images? I did not give my permission for them to be recorded. In days gone by, when I was a passenger and not a customer I travelled in perfect safety for decades on trains, taxis and buses. Why has someone decided that I need to be kept safer than before?
Am I free when I walk down the streets of my town and I see cameras everywhere recording my every movement? Every shop I visit is recording images ‘for security purposes’. Where does this data go? Who looks at it?
Am I free when every app on my ‘phone (if you bother to read the Terms and Conditions, which I do) tells me something like ‘we may use your contacts, photos, and any other information on your device to improve our service, and we may share this with trusted colleagues’ – who are such colleagues? I don’t trust them. I don’t know them.
I live in a society which pretends to offer Freedom to its citizens, but in reality, all aspects of my life are controlled by others. Yes, I do have more Freedom than say, an extreme dictatorship, but only when I leave my ‘phone at home and walk out at sunset into a field full of buttercups and lie on my back looking up at the stars, perchance to dream.
I live in a free country? I think not, there’s always a price to pay. The piper calls the tune.
Donato Cinicolo is a photographer, poet, filmmaker, and author. Donato began his photographic career at the age of seventeen. He was given a camera, film, and the use of a darkroom by Bob Rogers, an ex-war photographer who had been rescued just in time from a Nazi concentration camp. Roger’s whole body was covered in cigarette burns, but he was patient with Donato and instilled in him the belief that it is the duty of the old and experienced to pass on their knowledge to the next generations. Donato now helps young people on their photographic journeys. In 1999, Donato transitioned to digital image-making and began working with short films and sound recording. “Once a photographer, always a photographer,” he’s fond of saying. According to him, photography is a way of seeing and recording the world around us, showing the viewer a particular view of the magic of humanity.
