In this digital age of blogospheres and social networking, individual privacy is too often ignored. We thoughtlessly publicize details about ourselves, including home addresses and instant messaging screen names, on websites like Facebook and Blogger. We instinctively register our e-mail addresses and passwords whenever we’re prompted to do so.

And we sacrifice this Internet anonymity for nothing more than convenience and apathy. We overlook adjusting privacy settings for these websites often because it takes too much time. Besides, what’s so bad with allowing anyone access to this information?

Well, it could actually lead to identity theft.

A 2007 study conducted by Sophos, an IT security company, showed that an astonishing 41 percent of those approached with a friend request from a fake Facebook profile page leaked personal information. A large majority of these people revealed their date of birth, personal addresses and important details about their workplace. This information can easily be used to modify your credit card accounts or burglarize your house while you’re on vacation.

Never has such information been so widely accessible. And never have the risks for identity theft and personal privacy violations been so high.

A recent New York Times article discusses the ramifications of “collective intelligence,” a method of research analysis where digital information like cell phone tracking would replace opinion surveys as more accurate ways of understanding human behavior.

This technology certainly has great advantages — companies can better tailor their advertising toward particular demographics. Researchers on infectious diseases can gather more accurate facts about an outbreak of SARS, for example, by using cell phone and GPS records.

But the risks should not be overlooked. People would lose ownership of the information about their behavior. And there’s a powerful temptation for this technology to be misused.

As New York-based computer scientist Steve Steinberg told The New York Times, “This is one of the most significant technology trends I have seen in years; it may also be one of the most pernicious.”

The Times’ article begins with a story about 100 MIT students who swapped their cell phones for “smart” phones which would track their every movement, phone call, e-mail and text message. One of the students in the study casually remarked, because everyone has Facebook pages and Web sites nowadays, this is “a drop in the bucket in terms of privacy.”

This general apathy toward privacy protection may have dangerous implications for identity theft as technologies improve and collective intelligence becomes more universal. How, then, should we combat this apathy and regain a sense of personal responsibility for protecting our own information?

Some people are foisting this responsibility on others by purchasing identity theft protection. Companies offer such protection will notify participants of any unexpected changes of address or new credit card accounts, thus theoretically protecting them from identity theft.

But many consumer experts affirm most people don’t need this protection, the least of which because people aren’t reimbursed for any money that gets stolen. Identity theft victims are only compensated for the costs of handling the situation, such as making phone calls and photocopying documents.

Ultimately, we are accountable for protecting our own privacy. We should recognize the implications of collective intelligence in our lives and the importance. We shouldn’t allow everyone to see our date of birth, mother's maiden name or home address. We should monitor our credit reports for accounts that have been mysteriously opened or money that have been inexplicably spent.

The technology for collective intelligence, and social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, will not disappear. Privacy protection laws — whenever they’re established — will inevitably be stretched as widely as legally possible by corporations that will wish to retrieve that valuable information.

And in response, we should actively protect ourselves from the misuse of personal information and ensure our "rite" of privacy is well protected.

Instead of publicizing his personal information, David’s offering it to the highest bidder. Make him an offer at david.k.edwards.1@asu.edu.