In his 1964 book The Naked Society, Vance Packard challenged the ever increasing loss of privacy as technology and large institutions began wide spread surveillance that today has become acceptable. At the time, computer power, hidden cameras, and concealed microphones were crude gadgets compared to the technology currently in use. The intrusion into a person’s life then was nothing compared to what is acceptable today. With each generation we become comfortable and more obliging to the fact that we no longer are allowed privacy. We have all been stripped naked. A subcommittee in the U.S. Congress to study the invasion of privacy was created due to the publishing of The Naked Society and its reception. One of the criticisms raised by Packard was the use of consumer information by corporations and the government to specifically target individuals. The concern was that data being collected would be used and then taken advantage of for self-serving and nefarious purposes. The use of computers to store such information was novel but such data would be permanently retained.
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