"Recent developments in the digital space have definitely benefited individuals," said Dimitri Nemirovsky. "But they haven't come without risks."

Dmitri is the co-founder of Atakama, a multi-factor encryption software firm. He spoke to Orchid's Derek Silva about the new era of data privacy on this week's episode of the Priv8 Podcast .

"It's incumbent upon us as individuals to be mindful of how developments in the digital world are affecting our privacy," Dmitri said. "We must not be apathetic—we need to understand that our privacy is up to us.

"You wouldn't want to let anyone into your home 'just because.' It's the same with our digital selves: each of the digital fingerprints we leave behind is a part of our identities. We need to be more mindful of them as we move forward as a species."

Dmitri explained that consciousness about digital privacy is critical in today's world of rapid innovation. "Technology is leaps and bounds ahead of what we as individuals are capable of comprehending. Think about it—we walk around with handheld supercomputers.

"The computing power of the average smartphone is exponentially greater than what men flew to the moon on. We primarily use these devices for social media. But there's so much more that we can do with them. And they're prolific—everyone's going to have a smartphone in a very short period, including people in developing nations. This creates a situation where we truly become our digital selves."

In some ways, our digital identities carry more weight than our real-world selves. "When I walk into my bank, I have to prove who I am. That's relatively difficult to do: if I lost my wallet and tried to access my account by assuring the bank teller that I'm Dimitri Nemirovsky, they would not care. Whereas if I log in online, the recognition is that much clearer to them. So our digital selves are more 'legitimate' than our physical selves," he said.

"I think that eventually, there's going to be a revolution of sorts, where people will demand greater control of their digital selves—their identities."

You can listen to Derek's entire conversation with Dmitri here. And don't forget to subscribe to Priv8 on your favorite streaming service