At a recent roundtable poking at online privacy, a point in favor of encryption was heard…again.  I say “again” because any time there is a breach or fresh evience of surveillance or umbrage over  tracking or startling insight drawn from big data, encryption is the default response.  Too bad it is not the default solution.

It is easy to understand that if the line (whether POTS or Wi-Fi) is not secure, then neither is what’s said over them.  It falls to anyone choosing to be online to enhance his or her own security, as no one company controls the network we each configure to use each day. It is good that there are some companies building technologies that might give us an edge.

There are browsers that allow private, untracked Internet surfing and others offering plug-ins to identify tracking software and prevent ads from crowding the page. There are search engines that do not keep a database of queries and payment intermediaries that keep close tabs on credit card information.  And there are apps that disappear messages once they are read.  They all speak to control; increasingly valuable in a totally digital world.

Yet still they are not the default.  The barrier to their adoption is not as much their perceived value as it is the practical degree of difficulty.  Take email, for example.

Email is, by most measures and reports, the most essential communications application. For both personal and business use, email is the primary way we connect. Providers know this and their competition has led to a more robust feature set and even a move by Microsoft to offer free, cloud-based Outlook.  All this though the cloud has given consumers some cautionary tales (e.g., naked selfies hacked). Ease of use, storage and ubiquity are too easy addictions.  The only way for encrypted email to work is to make it equally easy (and compatible).

Whether 2015 finally becomes the year of encryption will depend almost solely on the ability to integrate security without impinging on ease-of-use and, of course, at near zero cost.  It won’t happen just ’cause it’s a good idea.