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View all search resultsSociety relies on corporations and Gen-Z to build a privacy culture
Indifference to privacy violations is not apathy; it is habituation - the natural outcome of a society trained to comply rather than to question.
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Indonesia has yet to join the club of nations from Brazil to China and India that have issued stringent regulations on personal data protection, modeled on the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which protects citizens from privacy and data breaches regardless of where the data is processed and which recognizes citizens’ “right to be forgotten”, so users can ask for data erasure and delisting from digital platforms and search engines. (Shutterstock/PopTika)
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ho would have thought that a robot vacuum cleaner could become a privacy threat? Washing machines connected to cloud dashboards, air conditioners monitored remotely, internet-connected security cameras streaming footage, smart televisions listening for commands and kitchen appliances reporting usage patterns - all now record behavior inside the most private spaces of the home.
These devices promise convenience, efficiency and safety, yet they silently map habits, movements and routines that users rarely control or even notice.
This evolution matters because privacy is not a technical preference; it is a human right. Human rights are not protected merely by devices, platforms or regulations, but by moral capacity. Without that capacity, privacy becomes decorative - discussed loudly, violated quietly and accepted as the inevitable cost of modern life rather than recognized as a boundary worth defending.
Privacy protection depends almost entirely on behavior when enforcement is absent. In societies where rules are followed mainly to avoid punishment or to satisfy authority, compliance collapses once supervision fades. Privacy cannot be sustained at this baseline. It does not require moral perfection, but it does require predictability. Respect for rights emerges only when restraint is internalized - when principles hold even if violations are easy, unseen and profitable.
By observable daily behavior, Indonesia still operates largely at this externally driven level of moral reasoning. Avoiding trouble and pleasing authority remain the dominant motivations. This is visible in everyday practices: helmets are worn only when police are sighted; riding against traffic is routine; traffic lights are treated as suggestions; and pedestrian paths are used for parking.
We also often see rubbish bins dismantled or ignored, tactile paving for the blind lead into poles or walls, corrupt practices excused as necessity, and lost items kept rather than returned when no one is watching.
Taken together, these behaviors reveal how rules are understood. They communicate that boundaries exist only when enforced. Children absorb these lessons long before they can articulate them, and they become part of a moral default that persists into adulthood.
