Privacy: We're overwhelmed by paper but defenseless against telemarketing attacks.

PRIVACY LAWS IN ITALY –

We're suffocated by privacy. Or rather, by a mountain of laws, decrees, and consolidated texts that we've been churning out uninterruptedly for almost twenty years, since 1996 to be precise. Everything, in theory, to protect our privacy, so-called sensitive data, from a mobile number to a medical certificateIn practice, however, the effect of this typical Italian bulimia of regulations has inflated like a bubble the weight of a privacy bureaucracy that, instead of reassuring us, distresses us. And it complicates our lives damnably. Every time we open a bank account, take out an insurance policy, connect a supply of gas or electricity, we are forced to sign authorization, or denial, to process our data. Paper after paper, signature after signature, without even knowing what we are signing. The National Association of Surgeons has protested to the Ministry of Health because every medical health insurance company Before even the most trivial of procedures, even those lasting a quarter of an hour, a doctor must fill out 39 pages of documents that the patient then signs. Most of them concern privacy matters. In Lombardy, Governor Roberto Maroni has created a team of "bureaucracy angels," a group of young graduates who assist small businesses with the avalanche of formalities. A significant percentage of these documents, which plague the daily routine of a craftsman, entrepreneur, or professional, concern privacy protection. And even from the universe of voluntary There has been an outcry against the excessive bureaucracy that regulates the life of non-profit organizations. that holds the top spot. "We are not the ombudsmen who have to protect the privacy of our members, and we cannot waste hours and hours preparing documents that then serve no purpose.» the voluntary associations protested in chorus.

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PRIVACY AND BUREAUCRACY IN ITALY –

Faced with a fever of regulations and potential bans, each of us finds ourselves completely defenseless, hands raised in surrender, when the attack on privacy is carried out through other, unwritten but highly effective laws that have to do with the power of the market. At that point, we become a number to be hammered, a consumer to be chased, day and night, a buyer to be captured until we're trapped. It is the evolution of marketing, and telemarketing, that leaves us no escape.. Even when the shadow of this sort of Big Brother, ready to intercept us, does not appear. In America, a consumer association has brought before the judges an IT company commissioned by a department store chain to track customers during the grocery and study them, step by step. In practice, hidden cameras recorded all the reactions of potential buyers to the merchandise displayed on the shelves. "A blatant violation of privacy," the consumer association tried to protest. To no avail. Because the judge recognized the company's right to develop its marketing policies, as if they prevailed over the privacy of a poor housewife unaware she was being filmed while choosing a can of peeled tomatoes. In Italy, the telemarketing attack has no effective barriers, and just leave your phone number, maybe to buy a flight ticket or to request a product through the e-commerce network, and that's itThe risk of being bombarded with promotional offers of all kinds becomes extremely high. Personally, I have an office number registered in the Registry of Opposition: it should therefore be protected from call center attacks. And yet, every week, as punctual as a mortgage payment, I get a call with some new offer for phone lines, pay TV, insurance, electricity, and gas. At first, I protested, threatening to sue, convinced I had a number safe from professional pests. Then I resigned myself, learned to politely dismiss the anonymous caller, considering it an exercise in tolerance, and I only hope a new law doesn't emerge to protect my privacy.

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