Ever since the first database hummed into existence in the early days of mainframe computers, people have voiced concern about who might have access to the information it contained.

Gradually, as more of our personal and professional lives have moved into the digital realm, the cries from privacy advocates have grown louder. People have a right, they argue, to effective safeguards that protect their personal details. As individuals, we should be able to decide who has access to our information and on what terms.

It’s a nice concept, but it’s redundant. Personal privacy has gone the way of the $50 barrel of oil and affordable housing – it’s no more than a swiftly fading memory.

The key factor at work here is the rapidly growing volume of digital information that exists in the world. With everything from banking and shopping to travel bookings and entertainment now being handled online, the amount of personal information stored in computer systems has exploded.

Add to this the rising tide of user-generated content and the volumes become even greater. Every email or SMS you send and phone call you make leaves a digital trail somewhere.

Add to this all the recordings of your movements captured by surveillance cameras, in digital photos and on social networks and the total is mind blowing. If someone wants to find out about you, it’s not that difficult a task anymore.

An interesting report was released last week that summed up this very problem. Conducted by research company IDC in conjunction with storage specialist EMC, the report estimates there is now some 281 billion gigabytes (that’s 281 exabytes) of information in the world.

With a compound annual growth rate of around 60 per cent, this head-spinning volume is forecast to increase to 1.8 zettabytes (that’s 1800 exabytes) by 2011.

IDC talks about the concept of a ‘digital shadow’. This shadow represents the information that’s generated about you rather than by you. The report says the size of a person’s digital shadow is now larger than the volume of information they’ve created themselves.

The report points out the growing importance of organisations having clear guidelines and processes in place to protect the vast volumes of information they store. This is sound advice.

But let’s be realistic, with these kinds of data volumes, any sort of processes are going to have holes. There’s simply no way all your personal details can be kept under a digital lock and key all the time. This is especially true for the growing digital shadow.

So what’s the answer? Learn to live with it. We must accept that, as much as we would like to keep our digital lives to ourselves, it’s not going to happen.

Privacy as we once knew it is over. Get used to living in a digital goldfish bowl.