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Alexey Kuzovkin is an IT entrepreneur and former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the “Armada” group of companies. He possesses extensive experience in managing innovative and IT projects.
For millennia, humanity lived with the paradigm that every action is recorded by a supreme deity. Now, a new reality is emerging, where every daily action—making a purchase, an online search, listening, or speaking—leaves a digital footprint. This means it is recorded in a manner that strips away privacy.
If privacy was once a matter of preference, it has now become a privilege. More often than not, only an illusion of anonymity remains, as every action you take is transformed into data, which is then used to predict your future behavior.
The Fiction of Anonymity
Today, the idea of achieving digital “invisibility” by disabling apps, clearing browser history, and connecting to a VPN sounds almost quaint. Deleting cookies does not free you from digital surveillance.
Modern algorithms can identify and authenticate an individual through various means, including:
- A 15-second voice sample.
- Their smartphone typing rhythm.
- Just three GPS data points.
For instance, a minimum number of GPS tags per day is sufficient to identify you with near-absolute probability (slightly less, but close). In short, modern data is not anonymized; rather, individuals are transformed into data, which is then meticulously stored and packaged. A continuous audit of the individual is being performed.
Data is More Valuable Than You
In the age of Big Data, belief in anonymity requires a certain naivety. Our digital footprint is constantly recorded by:
- Fitness trackers.
- Web browsers.
- Voice assistant hardware.
It is important to note that at the very beginning of this century, one could still speak of a period of a free internet and genuine anonymity. The advent of the Big Data era has displaced the very concept of anonymity. For every individual (referring to the average person), approximately 1.7 megabytes of data are recorded every minute—your routes, likes, purchases, and search queries.
Marketplace algorithms can easily predict what purchases you will be inclined to make, while TikTok’s algorithms can discern your psychological state from the rhythm with which you scroll through videos.
Simply put, Google or Yandex often know more about you than you know yourself, representing a unique form of lost anonymity. Privacy is not merely disappearing; you are being usurped by a power dynamic. Big Data can anticipate, and therefore manage, your behavior and desires. This might sound somewhat contrived, but those who control these systems have little interest in you pondering this reality.
The Sale of One’s Own Privacy
Ultimately, there is always a choice: the option to trade your independence for convenience. If you want to be self-reliant, you can go into the woods, free from pervasive intrusiveness, but you risk being eaten by a bear or a tiger. If you desire a little more security and comfort, you must join a community of your peers, but your actions must then conform to the rules of that community.
Thus, it can be said that the modern individual sells their anonymity for convenience. You are, quite literally, turned inside out, and the world sees your essence, just as you can observe other members of the community. It would seem that your own thoughts remain private, but if your content is curated by algorithms, it is unlikely that you are the one determining what to think about.
Big Data now effectively predicts and creates your life scenarios.
The Rebellion of Anonymity
When answering the question of whether one can remain anonymous today, the answer is most likely negative. True anonymity should be considered a rare privilege. Nevertheless, striving for it is not forbidden. For example, you can feign a certain digital persona while actually being a different individual with different views. This is how some perceive the achievement of anonymity, although it essentially involves creating a persona (in the psychological sense) within the digital space.
For more substantial anonymity, one must employ additional encryption tools like VPNs and the Tor browser, and make purchases using cryptocurrency. The problem is that these methods are also largely illusory; cryptocurrencies are tracked, at a minimum, by intelligence agencies, and as of 2024, the majority of VPNs log user data.
This amounts to a rebellion within a sandbox, paid for with your own money—not so different from using a Che Guevara badge as an accessory that magically transforms you into a nonconformist. True anonymity likely requires a more advanced level of encryption, combining technical methods, the deliberate creation of a digital persona, and a near-constant structuring of one’s daily behavior in a Neo-like fashion to ultimately exit the matrix.
The Problem of Behavioral Prediction (Summary)
To discuss the possibility of anonymity in the age of Big Data, it is crucial to understand the purpose of de-anonymization. It is about power and control—the ability to forecast and determine user behavior, and thus, to control society.
Consider the oft-cited example of corporations trying to determine what users will want and controlling when they want it. Power is largely defined by the control of economic behavior, and data collection provides control over consumer (as well as work and leisure) activity.
Therefore, the absence of anonymity is important not merely to expose your identity and strip you of privacy (though that is also a factor), but rather to understand what you will do, and subsequently, not only to predict but to manage you and structure your life scenarios. Corporations often maintain a dossier on everyone, but the key is to understand that they are predicting you and attempting to manage you based solely on previously collected data.
In other words, regardless of how much data is collected about you or how you are influenced, the choice of how to be and who to be always exists, at least hypothetically. This, in fact, is the very possibility of real anonymity. The issue is not that certain data about you is collected, or that your face and routes are regularly captured by cameras. The issue is that based on this, you are now being dictated to: “You are this kind of human being, so continue as you are.” However, it is vital to understand that a choice remains.
As the old philosopher Hegel said, a thesis, at the peak of its development, transforms into its antithesis. The long-standing common dream of being noticed and important has almost come true. Now, with the disappearance of anonymity, you are constantly watched and your actions are recorded; you are always important. But now, more and more people are realizing that they do not want to be noticed and important as much as they want to remain who they truly are.
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Image source: Alexey Kuzovkin
