A while back I received an email that surprised me, it was asking me if I wanted to sell a domain name. I was surprised and wondered how they found my email. I didn’t own the domain, but I did have a page on it with a link to my website. I realized that on my website I had put my email address, they had gone to my website, found the about page and found me. I had forgotten that I had put my email address on the site, and it started me thinking about all the places online I might have put personal information, not thinking about how it might be used in the future.

Privacy has always been important to me, for years I didn’t have an online presence, I was careful to shield myself in the digital world. This has become harder, companies I’ve worked for have employee pages, talks I give are more likely to be recorded and put online and there are references to my writing online, my digital footprint has become larger. 

There are real positives to this, I love the accessibility of being able to watch talks and research topics that would have been impossible to do twenty years ago, but I still want my privacy, I want a choice on what I share. I want the advantages of technology while keeping control of what is out there. There is information I only want to share it with the people I choose to share it with and Fewer Cards lets me do this. 

With the Fewer Cards Personal Card I am taking advantage of technology; the seamless interaction and the speed of sharing, while keeping control of my data. My information is stored on my Fewer Cards Personal Card, not online, so when the card is scanned or tapped that data is transferred directly to the person I want to share it with. It’s not taking them to a web page that could be viewed by anyone, it is stored straight to their device. Privacy is important to me and with the Fewer Cards Personal Card I feel in control of my information again.