I watch with bewilderment as individuals, organisations and nations waste vast amounts of time and money worrying about privacy and secrecy in a world now totally dominated by IT. We have never enjoyed total anonymity in the past world of paper, so why should we expect it to be remotely possible in a world of bits? No amount of debate and legislation will impact on the fact that privacy and secrecy are relative and not absolute. It is fundamentally impossible to enforce laws pertaining to the gathering and retention of any kind of data. It is also highly questionable if we can even produce sensible guidelines in a world moving ten times faster than legal frameworks and government thinking. By the time the controlists have realised there is an opportunity the world has moved on.

I could compile a detailed database of all the people I meet, and organisations I work in, and that would run into thousands of entries a year, and include all the inane and intimate chatter I hear. To make sure it cannot be found, I could encrypt it into photographs stored as JPEG files randomly distributed in an electronic gallery of thousands on an obscure part of some network, and no one will ever know! Of course, big organisations could do an even better job!

Do I mind anyone accessing my medical or employment records, CV, and other personal details? Frankly, I don't give a fig! In fact I wish they would gather far more information on me to help manage my life. Full marks to the first airline that decides to track me and manage my air miles to ensure my wife and children can be on some summer trip with me. And when will my bank remember to send my wife and daughters flowers for their birthday. Should I be knocked unconscious in a road traffic accident in New York - please let the ambulance have my medical record. Please let them know that I am going deaf and that I am diabetic. I really don't want it to be a secret - I want to live!

When will stores start to use the information available on me to present the goods and buying opportunities I crave? When will the airport check in and security system recognise me and just let me walk through? All this secrecy is making life harder, more expensive, dangerous and less serendipitous. For reasons that can only be placed in the stupid category my British driving licence has no photograph of me. Why? This is almost unique on the planet - and just because of some spurious civil liberties argument.

Of course there are things I want to keep secret. My relationship with my wife is sacred to us both. Our detailed financial position, earnings and commercial relationships are also entirely our business. That is unless this information becomes a matter of commercial or national security in some legal contest involving our honesty. If that were the case I would just hand over the lot to establish our innocence. Visit some Scandinavian countries and you can access everyone's tax accounts and a whole lot more. As with their public nude bathing and saunas, no one seems to bother.

Personally speaking I can only think of one negative element in all this. I would just like the opportunity to ensure that the data held against my name is correct and up to date. Or at least have the opportunity to affect corrections should errors surface at some time. But then again - we have never achieved such accuracy in the past either!