But the Digital Revolution is also introducing a new hazard with a wild and unpredictable impact: privacy violations.

The first drop box was invented by Robert Kay in 1760. It increased the speed and efficiency of fabric weaving and helped usher in the Industrial Revolution. For seventy years, advances in mechanics, chemistry and urbanization resulted in both unprecedented improvements to living standards and the foundation of the modern capitalist economy.

The swift change brought with it unintended consequences. Coal-burning factories choked citizens and darkened the sky with a mix of smoke and fog. In London, fatal outbreaks of Cholera resulted from draining raw sewage directly into the Thames. In Cleveland, oil refineries spilled crude into the Cuyahoga River causing it to catch fire three times in 1800s.

During the Industrial Revolution people paid the price of progress with the destruction of the environment. Today, we pay with our privacy.

The sources of privacy violations are as various as those of pollution and affect organizations of all sizes. Large companies with sophisticated security practices suffer from zero day exploits. Medium-size companies are unable to crawl above the Security Poverty Line. Startups lack both the time and capital necessary to focus on security when building for growth is job number one.

In 2011, Sony revealed that 77 million user accounts including names, addresses, email addresses, birthdates, passwords, logins, security questions and possibly credit cards were obtained by an “illegal and unauthorized person.” The number of people affected is particularly alarming given the new research that indicates one in four people who receive data breach letters become fraud victims.

Last year, a weak password and an over-privileged administrative account led to the exposure of 780,000 patient files entrusted to the Utah Department of Technology Services. It is as though a cloud of carcinogenic particulates now hangs over the state. People exposed to the violation wait with no control over their prognosis. Will the exposure lead to a shocking public revelation of their medical afflictions? Perhaps they’ll only suffer the indignity of identity theft. Maybe both.

Whatsapp, one of today’s most popular messaging clients on the market has been found to be in current violationt Dutch and Canadian privacy laws. The reason? It requires its users to share their contact information and that of their friends which is stored on the company’s servers. This presents the risk of a data breach affecting people who don’t even use the product. More people might be alarmed if they were aware of the company’s colorful history of security concerns.

Many changes must be made to slow the progression of this modern menace. Programing languages, platforms and security layers must be implemented to sustainably protect user data. Everyone from startup accelerators to venture capital partners must incentivize companies to make security and user privacy a vital aspect of product development.

While we all benefit from the great advances of the Digital Revolution, it is your unique privacy that is at risk from the potential consequences of this progress. You must be thoughtful of not only what you share but the potential consequences of its unexpected exposure.

In the summer of 1858, the Great Stink made the Thames so abhorrent that British citizenry finally drew the line on pollution. I ask you, what will be the Great Stink of the Digital Revolution? A major hack of Facebook seems like a reasonable possibility. But perhaps it won’t be so obvious or sudden. Whatever it is, take a deep breath while the air is still clear.

Rob Banagale is Co-Founder of Gliph: an identity platform designed to let you communicate and transact securely and privately. Use Gliph on the web or download the native app from the App Store and on Google Play.

Photo credits: gorillaradio, ellenm1, and marinephotobank.

A variety of companies and publications have released new articles or information to mark the day. Microsoft released results of a new survey of 1,000 US adults that shows privacy is becoming more important to people, yet a sense of powerlessness pervades.

In the key findings of the report, 45% of people feel they have little or no control over personal information gathered by companies about them. Below is a graphic that shows how much control people feel they have over personal information shared online:

The circles on the graph indicate that men feel less in control over privacy than women while young people and those making incomes less than $50k a year have the strongest sense of control.

The Huffington Post has published an article marking the day and efforts to urge the US Congress into passing Electronic Privacy Reform. The Huffington Post article highlights the increasing disparity in privacy afforded to US citizens with regards to physical and virtual communication channels.

For example, email stored on web-based email services but used almost entirely from the home or mobile devices (like Gmail) may be obtained from US citizens without a warrant. Whereas a personal, physical letter sent to a home remain protected.

Individual choices around what personal data to keep private continue to focus on Facebook which encourages the open sharing and access to real personal data.

Facebook’s recent release of Graph Search has again highlighted concerns around the unexpected revelation of personal information. In the piece by The Nation, Ari Melber connects Graph Search to David Pozen’s paper (.pdf) in the Yale Law Journal describing the Mosaic Theory of intelligence gathering, where seemingly insignificant pieces of information can be assembled into a useable piece of intelligence on a person.

Unintentional sharing of personal data continues to be a problem, with the Online Trust Alliance announcement today that 242.6 million personal records were exposed in 2012. In their 2013 report on Data Protection and Data, they find that of 1478 breaches in 2012, over one-quarter were due to “internal incidents,” meaning personal data was revealed by members of the organization entrusted with personal data, rather than criminal mischief of those outside organizations.

Gliph is proud to be on the forefront of providing privacy not only around personal data, but also in building a system for communication and connection that offers real privacy.

In the Gliph company blog, we previously covered the efforts of the NTIA’s Privacy Multistakeholder Meetings that are aimed at realizing the Obama Administration’s Privacy Bill of Rights. We’ve also shared ideas for how startup companies can make privacy a strategic asset.

Some functional highlights from 2012 that added privacy to Gliph included the ability for users to securely delete Gliph messages, the release of Cloaked Email and an app access PIN to prevent casual snooping of Gliph conversations.  We have some terrific additions that add additional opportunities to maintain privacy planned for 2013 and look forward to sharing them with you.

We urge everyone to take a moment today to consider what personal data they have currently available on the interent and thoughtfully consider actions they need to take in 2013 to take control of their privacy online.