“But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”

We want transparency from the technology companies as it relates to protecting our privacy. We demand privacy, but we also like when things are transparent and in the open.  It is almost like, we like privacy for ourselves and we like transparency when someone else’s privacy keeps us from knowing what we feel we should know. So, really, we want both.  It’s a hard thing to manage within our businesses.  I fully support the transparency of salary data so that we can ensure equity.  But, what if someone doesn’t want to have their salary known?  This is why the balance between privacy and transparency is tricky across many facets of our business. And whom is really watching are our customers as they want to be sure that we treat them with the privacy they deserve.

I read a very insightful article by James Martin (a Jesuit Priest, consultant to The Vatican and editor at large for America magazine) and his take on the Biblical positions on Privacy and Transparency.  Jesus tells us in Matthew to spend time in private with our secrets given to God.  Paul tells us that we need to always be shining light on our transgressions and actions.  I love this as God is telling us exactly what we need to demonstrate in our lives in that what is God’s is God’s and the rest that is our human condition should be in the light and transparent. We can live with both privacy and transparency and when done right we live the abundant life that God has given for us.

Reference:  Matthew 6:6 (New Living Translation)