How snooping has become a relic of a bygone era in the age of social media

One way to look at recent reports about family members of notable figures in Indian history claiming they had been snooped on by the government long after the aforementioned worthy personalities passed on would be to aver that we have always had a rather nervy set of people governing us. For others, it could well be a mark of notability. After all, in a land where some people routinely do something whacky in order to get into some record book or the other, the need to stand out from the teeming masses might be citied as a plausible reason. But it is arguable that governments no longer need to eavesdrop on people to know what they are up to. People now quite willingly put up their thoughts, wishes and even deepest desires on various social media. Evince the fact that all of us have at some point or the other been, well, bugged by that update which cheerily informs us which restaurant or coffee shop a person is frequenting and what they are imbibing. And that’s just location. Many others turn quite loquacious about everything from personal life to politics. Making it, naturally, redundant to snoop.

“There will come a time,” said the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, “when it isn't (going to be) ‘they're spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.” Are we there yet?