We are becoming finicky about our privacy rights, aren’t we? Parents are asked by schools to fill in a data protection form before students are taken on an outing. They are requested to give or withhold permission to photograph the students and post them on their school website.

The village gossiper looking from behind a persjana has now been replaced by all of us who are fast becoming voyeurs and exhibitionists at the same time- Fr Joe Borg

On a recent visit to a medical consultant I noticed that, while interviewing me, he was writing my answers on a notebook. “I refuse to have an electronic database with my patients’ data as I would be obliged to register it, and I feel I shouldn’t,” he told me.

We have become so pernickety about privacy rights that we even set up a Commissioner for Data Protection to take care of our privacy rights.

He sees to it that without specific permission, our photos are not posted on Facebook, our names are not included in the database of the consultant of our choice. Great, isn’t it?

While we are seemingly so jealous for our privacy we forfeit it happily, voluntarily and in droves. This paradoxical situation reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984 and Ben Elton’s Blind Faith.

1984 presents to us a world where Big Brother is everywhere and knows everything about everyone. In the futuristic world of Blind Faith, cameras cover all aspects of everybody’s life.

Video cameras survey you while working in your office, walking down the street or making love; and they disseminate the images far and wide.

This state of affairs is lauded by the powers that be. Confessor Bailey tells the main character in Elton’s book: “Privacy is blasphemous. Only perverts do things in private.”

Elton’s Blind Faith and Orwell’s 1984 present us with two dramatic scenarios which we consciously dread – the loss, if not death, of privacy – but which we are unconsciously co-operating to make a reality.

We live in a contradictory society marked by the simultaneous celebration and the demise of privacy. The technology we love to embrace is making privacy passé.

While schools ask parents’ permission for posting photos, their underage children most willingly and voluntarily post on social networking sites such as Facebook the most intimate details of their personal life and the most personal photos.

They tell everyone where they go, who they are going out with, with whom they quarrel, when they are feeling down and so on. Even the not so young, who should know better, do the same, and worse. You find on Facebook information about all sorts of happenings, from attending boring parties to passionate evenings.

Such information satisfies the curiosity of many, but that perhaps is the less serious part of the problem. Many do not know (or, perhaps, do not care) that a growing number of companies are scanning social networks looking to excavate data about you and your friends.

Sometimes excavation is not needed, for the information is there for the viewing pleasure of many – friends or foes. Some have been fired for posting derogatory comments about their boss or job. For instance that Facebook quiz you just took? It made visible your photos, political views – even your sexual preferences – to the invisible stranger who wrote it.

Phone apps help themselves to our contacts, Google tracks our web history, and supermarkets monitor our buying habits.

At one time the mobile was the great bulwark of privacy. You could answer it without anyone knowing where you were. Not any longer. If you use a mobile phone, you’re leaving a record of where you’ve been. To be sure, this has proved useful in criminal investigations.

Besides, information does not fade the way it used to. In the good old days of paper files, records were forgotten in long-lost files. Today, they are instantly searchable online –perhaps forever.

Some say that scientists should come up with ways of giving data a definitive lifespan. But others think we should adapt to a new reality of data that will never die.

The village gossiper looking from behind a persjana has now been replaced by all of us who are fast becoming voyeurs and exhibitionists at the same time – switching between one and the other with ease.

This combined personality is perhaps the reason why we do not mourn the death of privacy.

• Lies have become an easy tool for people who believe the end justifies the means to achieve what they want.

Bishop Mario Grech said this during his homily on the occasion of the feast of St Peter and St Paul on June 29.

Grech’s words had greater significance as they came just a few days after L-orizzont admitted in court that its story of August 2011 about Mgr Grech was pure fabrication.

The paper of the General Workers’ Union had accused the bishop of the vilest things. In a front page story they had alleged he was doing his best to speed up the process of canonisation of Fr Mikiel Attard (who happens to be Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono’s brother) to boost her electoral campaign.

They had also blatantly said that Grech had intervened in a juridical process before the Ecclesiastical Tribunal to favour somebody.

Anyone who knows the bishop and who knows anything about the process of canonisation and the way Church Tribunals work would have immediately concluded that the report in L-orizzont was pure (or perhaps it is better to say impure) fabrication. Today one year down the line L-orizzont had to admit in court that it was the case.

L-orizzont’s article of August 2011 is an example of gutter journalism at its worst. Unfortunately we have too many examples. There are too many so-called journalists and commentators who abuse their craft to assassinate the character of whoever is of a different opinion from theirs.

In the run-up to a general election, which now seems to be quite close, such incidents of utter irresponsibility are bound to increase.

Such reportage is always to be condemned, but it becomes more condemnable when the targets are the bishops. I am not saying that bishops should not be criticised. There is nothing wrong with criticising them; nay, sometimes it is a duty.

What I am saying is that whatever their defects and limitations, our bishops never use their pastoral office to further any particular party political position. I say a resounding Yes to criticism of some of the positions bishops take, but I say a more emphatic No to downright lies about them and to the nasty imputation of bad motives to their actions.

• “He is one of those small guys whom God made small because He is a compassionate God and He wanted to limit the damage.” Jeremy Clarke in The Spectator June 23, 2012, p.61.

(It is such a good quote I could not but share it with you).

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