Once it would have sounded like a feverish nightmare. A robot in every home, mapping out rooms, learning the sound of your voice and saving the information for unknown purposes.

But when US company iRobot began selling RoombaA robotic hoover that cleans houses independently using motion sensors and cameras. vacuums, people flocked to buy them. And Amazon EchoA series of speakers produced by Amazon that are voice-activated and can be asked to carry out tasks. They are powered by Alexa, a personal assistant AI developed by Amazon. speakers have been wildly popular. Given the chance, it seems, people will stock their homes with spying robots.

Now, Amazon has moved to buy iRobot. Some worry this is another way for the megacorporation to invade our lives and expand its power.

Amazon certainly seems to have few qualms about its use of data. Echos have been caught recording private conversations and sharing them with Amazon without their owners' knowledge.

The company has also worked with US police departments to get its Ring doorbell installed in target neighbourhoods. The camera-operated doorbells are then used to carry out surveillance on the community.

That is why some fear its acquisition of iRobot. They believe Amazon wants to use Roombas to harvest more data, and perhaps even sell information on the layout of homes to the police.

It is no wonder people are pessimistic about the future of online privacy. In 2020, a survey found that 80% of people in the UK believe they no longer have any control over personal data, and 61% think it is too late to take back control.

People are so fatalisticThe idea that all events are due to fate and cannot be changed with action. about data that they overestimate tech companies' power to harvest it. Many believe Google and Facebook are recording our conversations. It seems the only way of explaining the creepy accuracy of targeted advertising.

In reality, this is technologically impossible. But, it is in the interests of the companies for us to believe it. The more we come to believe that the loss of our data is inevitable, the less we will fight for our privacy.

Privacy advocates have won a number of battles recently. In 2014, the European Court of JusticeThe supreme court of the European Union, with the final say on all matters of EU law. introduced a "right to be forgottenThe right to have private information removed from internet searches.", meaning we can demand search engines remove results relating to us.

That is why some think it is time to reassert our right to privacy.

Others argue that we are responsible for our downfall. Sociologist Max WeberA German thinker of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries who is regarded as one of the founders of sociology. His ideas about the development of modern western society remain highly influential. wrote that modernity seals us in an "iron cageA concept introduced by Max Weber to explain how bureaucracy and rationalisation come to erode people's freedom.", in which we go along with what makes our lives easier, even if it costs us freedoms.

Yes: Tech companies are simply moving too quickly for the rest of us to catch up with them. We barely understand their technology. We might as well resign ourselves to a future without privacy.

No: Regulators do have tools to rein in the tech companies. Some in the US are hoping to stop Amazon in its tracks using anti-trust legislationLaws designed to prevent companies from forming monopolies.. We can introduce the right to privacy. The fight is not over.

Or... The state will not protect our data because it stands to gain from what Amazon and others are doing, by buying the data they harvest to keep us under surveillance. We must take action ourselves.