What are some good examples of privacy being taken away in George Orwell's novel 1984 and how might these examples be relevant today?.

Privacy – or its absence – is an important theme in George
Orwell’s novel 1984 right from the start, and this theme is one of
the issues that helps make the book especially relevant to life today.  Examples of the
loss of privacy in the novel (and today) include the
following:

• In the very second paragraph of the
  novel, the narrator reports that at every landing of a building, the elevator opens to a
  poster showing a huge face with staring eyes and the slogan “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
  YOU.” Almost immediately, then, the reader is introduced to a society in which constant
  surveillance and lack of privacy are the norm.  A contemporary example of such
  surveillance would be the observation cameras that are hidden (or even plainly visible)
  in many public places these days.


• In the next paragraph,
  Winston is faced with what we would call a
  television:

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The instrument (the telescreen, it was called)
could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off
completely.

One thinks of the
televisions that are now increasingly present everywhere, especially in
airports.

• Later in the same paragraph, Winston
  is described as wearing the “uniform of the Party.” One thinks of the school uniforms
  that are now increasingly common, even in public schools. Individual expression, even in
  dress, is now often forbidden.


• A bit later, a police
  patrol is described “snooping into people’s windows.” One thinks of the heavy
  surveillance, by members of the Transportation Safety Administration, that now takes
  place at airports (surveillance that often involves “snooping” of a far more intimate
  sort than even Orwell describes).


• Again, a bit later, the
  narrator reports that the telescreen not only transmits sounds and images to Winston but
  also transmits any sounds Winston may make and any image he may present, as long as he
  is within sight of the screen. One thinks of the surveillance cameras used, for
  instance, in casinos, and of the wiretapping (which now doesn’t even need to involve
  wires!) that is presently a main form of crime
  detection.

Just within the first few pages of
the novel, then, Orwell conjures up a world hugely lacking in privacy – a world that
resembles ours today far more than the world that existed in England in 1948, when
Orwell was alive.