Lack of privacy and safety in digital age

Dear Amy: I come from a large family, and we get together often. Lately I’ve come to dread our interactions. There are always some individuals who never put down their phones. They take pictures and videos from the minute the interaction starts until it finishes.

I was recently at dinner with family members and my 77-year-old mother-inlaw took out her phone the minute we sat down. She started taking pictures and immediately posting them on Facebook — as we were having dinner!

I politely said, “Can we save the pictures until later?” She responded, “My life is an open book, and I don’t care what others know.”

I feel like it is an invasion of my privacy to have my picture all over FB, Instagram and Snapchat.

If you stand up for yourself and say, “I prefer not to be in the picture/video,” they call you a party pooper. Do people who don’t want every move to be public, have any rights? — Upset

Dear Upset: It seems that while younger people have a reputation for oversharing, older people are actually worse about protecting and respecting privacy — both their own, and other peoples’.

This creates not only social, but security concerns.

Yes, you have a right to privacy. But if you are in a public place or at a public event (a restaurant or a party), you don’t really have the expectation of privacy in a legal sense.

Someone should explain to your mother-in-law that telegraphing where you are going and revealing where you are — in real time — creates very real security concerns. By posting constant updates about her whereabouts, she has just saved a burglar the trouble of casing her house and/or yours.

Stick up for yourself and for your right not to be photographed without your consent. Let everyone know.