What’s in it for you?

I remember a television news item some years ago which demonstrated how vulnerable some people are through leaving information about themselves in their rubbish bins. And if you’re not given to thinking much about what you dispose of and how, then I daresay you’re more likely to be vulnerable.

But even if you do take care to detach linkable traces of your identity from your garbage, it must be slightly discomforting if you find someone rifling through your bin.

Rhodri Morgan, writing in the Indy the other day, describes the experience in terms of privacy:

‘On their third or fourth visit, I realised my discomfort was a privacy thing; I wondered what the contents of my bin might reveal about me.’

The point being that although in theory you have renounced ownership of the material, by placing it in a publicly funded collection service - and the council owns the bin - it still represents a concentration of sources of possible information about you.

And perhaps the age of the golden dustman, portrayed so wonderfully by Dickens in Our mutual friend, is coming round again. But I’d rather live in a society where people didn’t feel the need to rummage through rubbish.