Data Footprint

Every time I sign
Or uncheck to decline
Register completely free
Subscribe to an RSS-feed
Download an iTune
Or hit the back button too soon
Select an IM theme pack
Opt-in for free call back
Click on a search result
Hit Red on the Sky remote
Go abroad with my mobile phone
Switch the Bluetooth on
Vote online for my favourite celebrity
I leave a trail of data emissions activity

How can I offset
This data footprint?
Eroding my privacy
Compromising my identity
What if I switched off the opt-out box
After each and every ‘secure’ sign-up?
Would that be enough to stop
The digital age double bluff
Or am I already
Sneered in the World Wide Web conspiracy?
Can I ever reverse the damaging effects
Of carrying out online price checks
That build up a history
Of my shopping infidelities.

Maybe I should choose
To buy a ticket and not use
The TFL conveniency
Of the Oyster card registered to me
Then would it be enough
To stop Big Bruvva from catching up.

And damn the lure of user generated
Content I voluntarily created
Which seductively whispered in my ear
“It’s OK! All your friends are here”
I feel like Eve
So naïve
As I bite on the apple
Of the data capture tree

So I Facebook hypnotically
Uploading my life’s chronology
Like they ain’t already got enough on me
Polluting my own personal security
With pictures and pokes
And networks and notes
Divulging data in my real name
Things that should never be in the public domain

Can I recycle data detection?
Offset with data protection?
Perhaps.
In fact
I am the one who breached
The Act
I thought would keep
Sacred my data identity
I am the emitter
A Global data warming player hater
All the same
Don’t hate the player
Hate the game.

Deborah Harper © 21/07/07