Once upon a time, if you were snapped in a compromising position you could destroy the film and the root cause of your problem was gone. Destroy what copies may have been printed and your political career remained intact.

Nowadays there are no negatives, except the big image file that can be beamed around the world before you can say "invasion of privacy" and finish that post-coital cigarette.

Even the most basic digital cameras produce images that can be blown up to reveal every wrinkly detail at A3-size. Just ask Paris Hilton.

But you don't have to be involved in anything illicit to find yourself plastered over the internet.

The advent of the digital camera means that people are less picky about what pictures they take, because they don't have to pay for the processing and printing.

Once the camera would come out at special occasions; now it never gets put away. A quiet Sunday afternoon beer is now a photo shoot and we are all ugly, underpaid models.

Some say the digital age has taken the magic out of photography: the tantalising wait for your holiday snaps while you got your film developed and printed, only to discover you have three rolls of film of what you thought were fascinating Aztec hieroglyphics, which are overexposed and out of focus. And some thrilling shots of the inside of your hotel room.

Others argue that the digital age has stolen the sense of occasion from the photograph, but then the best photos are spontaneous and this snap-happy society should capture some doozies. Now you can choose which photos you want printed and discard anything that isn't brilliant. But many people don't even bother with prints, content to gawk at their bad photos on their camera, computer or over the internet.

But what happens when al-Qaeda hacks into Facebook and destroys your profile (apart from leaving you without 563 of your closest friends)?

Or what happens when the technology changes and you can't get the necessary hardware to read that old memory stick the size of a mobile phone; or the USB drive goes the way of the six-inch floppy disk; or the JPEG format goes the way of Sony's spectacular dud, the MiniDisc.

Your memories could be stuck on the digital equivalent of the videotape or - even worse - a Betamax videotape.

Of course, there is a positive side.

Once, people used to worry about the house burning down - they could replace the house, but not the photographs. Now, the problem is finding a way to get rid of them.