When I first mentioned a few years ago that I wanted to delete my Facebook account, I was met with disbelief. As if I was going against the most important social norm in society.

It didn’t get any better when I said it was mostly because of privacy concerns. Again it was as if I was this tinfoil wearing nutter. Or some criminal with something to hide.

I have nothing to hide, they claimed to me. Like the East Germans had nothing to hide from Stasi – or is it more correct to say they could hide nothing from Stasi?

I had the same experience when I deleted all my photos from Instagram. Hearing I was paranoid and it meant nothing, so I mighty as well stay a user, like everyone else – one of us, one of us…

Which is why so many online services get away with what they do. We don’t question their actions. We assume they will guard our data.

End of the day it boils down to where that data is stored, which country do the servers reside and to what degree do the laws in that country protect our privacy?

Stasi is gone – today. But what about tomorrow?