It’s one of those images that appear with startling regularity online: the names, numbers, and private information of strangers on stained paper used to serve bhelpuri at Juhu. ‘Look at where your data ends up’ the posts say, and everyone smiles, shaking their heads at the casual carelessness with which governments and organisations treat their users’ and citizens’ secrets. There is this implicit acknowledgement that who we are on paper matters as little as who we are in real life, and that our online lives are as cheap as our lives offline.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the country’s largest insurance firms admitted to being the victim of a cyberattack that allowed criminals to access health records and other sensitive information belonging to millions of its customers. Names and addresses were obviously taken, along with medical reports, insurance claims, identity cards, and even tax details. That this story didn’t occupy us for as long as it ought to, was testament to how we have all internalised the fact that nothing about our personal lives is truly our own anymore.