Why do I care? Well, I may make my living writing for newspapers, but the urge for privacy is in my cultural DNA, as I think it is in that of very many British people. If someone persists in asking me too many personal questions, my instinctive reply is “Why do you want to know?” We have long been suspicious of an overly intrusive state, and historically that suspicion has served us well. Anyone scrutinising my internet use would, I think, be quickly bored by the eclectic combination of work-related searches and fantasy property hunts, but that’s not the point: it’s mine and not the state’s to know.