All That Happens Must Be Known

Dave Egger's "The Circle", takes on an all too real and all too familiar Google-like brigade of complete transparency, which distorts sense of self through an innate relationship between obsolete privacy and omnipotent data. The relationship between data and privacy, despite intricate factors and context, is rather simple: data annihilates privacy. Mae begins to get a real sense of the invasive world that she has entered as the novel progresses. She noticeably grows weary of the utter lack of privacy bestowed upon the Circle employees as she toys with her inner moral compass and her superficial need to prosper in the company as well as fit in with their transparent vision. As Mae becomes more and more engulfed in the social practices of her community with institutions such as PartiRank, InnerCircle, and OutterCircle, she begins to understand that her every move is broadcasted. This mass collection of data, accessible at a moments notice, begins to shrink humans into nothing more than a statistic or a digital footprint.

The connection between data and privacy is blatantly blurred in a circumstance which Mae encountered regarded her absence at a Portugual meeting she didn't feel invited to. When it was expressed that her absence was felt, Annie explained to Mae that her invitation rooted from a few photographs stored on Mae's computer that are now on the Cloud: "You don't have to run around signing up for Portugal interest clubs or anything. When Alstair wanted to do his brunch, he probably just asked for a search of everyone on campus who had visited the country, took pictures or mentioned it in an email or whatever" (111). Annie attempts to nonchalantly explain that at any second, and for a reason as trivial as a Portugal brunch, every database, email, and travel history can be scanned and reported to make a list of Circlers. While Annie ensured this was a normal practice to expedite the process and make things easier and more efficient, Mae quietly felt violated in a which she found hard to explain. This invasiveness made Mae uneasy, even though it was harmless and with presumably good intentions.

In the same fashion as data trumped privacy regarding the Portugal lunch, Mae faces another instance of exploitation with perhaps a heightened degree of extremity. Mae lightheartedly attended a seminar on a new dating site called LuvLuv with her interest Francis, however, the situation quickly turned intruding and humiliating when it was Mae's personal information examined for the room. Despite all the information broadcasted being opening online, Mae still felt violated as her favorite restraints, food ordered, places visited, allergies, and preferences were illuminated for everyone. While everyone in the room was getting a kick out of the practicality and revolutionary aspect of the whole site, Mae sank in despair: "But then again, it wasn't entirely accurate, so was that the problem? Having a matrix of preferences presented as your essence, as the whole you? Maybe that was it. It was some kind of mirror, but it was incomplete, distorted" (126). The idea that all of this well maintained and extremely invasive data existed was not the main issue, it is the idea that the data brought fourth characterized every aspect of every human when that is simply not the case. A human is much more complex, much more filled with unmeasurable concepts of passion and personality and interest, that a digital legacy disregards in its entirety.