While targeted advertisements may be nice because it’s only showing you things that they think that you’ll want/need/like, the other side of surveillance based advertising is surveillance pricing.

Surveillance pricing analyzes massive troves of your personal information to predict the price you would be willing to pay for an item—and charge you accordingly. Retailers can charge a higher price when it thinks you can afford to spend more—on payday, for example. Or when you need something the most, such as in an emergency.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/fight-surveillance-pricing-we-need-privacy-first

He said “illegal” but the word should be “wrong” and YOU don’t get to decide what’s wrong. THEY could decide you’re wrong for having blue eyes or, I don’t know, not liking TACO.

Something you don’t need to hide today may be something you need to hide tomorrow. And there’s no going back.

Yet

By changing the framing. Ask about how he’ll feel when (not if) a bad actor gets his info? Steals his identity? Opens a credit card. Takes out a loan. Tanks his credit. His info is all right there conveniently compiled by unknown entities and data gets breached all the time. Enter his info into a website like https://haveibeenpwned.com/ and show him just how many times his data has already been compromised without his knowledge. Point out data security isn’t JUST about privacy it’s about DATA SAFETY.

It is sadly something that some people will never understand. You could question why he does the things he does (closing curtains, using envelopes for letters instead of just using a postcard, having a password at all), but that would likely just make him feel attacked.

I don’t have anything to hide does not imply that anyone needs to know. Not you, not a neighbor, not the internet, and absolutely not the government.

I posted the following somewhere else recently:

“nothing to hide”

Secrecy and privacy are two different things.

Secrecy is hiding something you don’t want anyone to know because it’s “Bad/illegal”.

Privacy is acknowledging that it’s none of ANYONE’S business where you put gas in your car, what route you drive home, what brand of underwear you buy, what kind of music you listen to, your eating habits, etc…

The more you are ok with data being collected, the more data they will try to collect until finally your life isn’t yours anymore.

You don’t close the bathroom door because you’re doing something illegal, you close the bathroom door because it’s none of anyone’s business and you aren’t interested in being watched.

Our personal data is valuable and holds power over us. Unfortunately it’s only been recent decades that this concept REALLY started to sink in and unfortunately big corporations figured it out a little quicker than we did

I’m reminded of a story I heard about a woman in South America (I don’t remember the country.) Her best friend attended a protest one year. She makes a post on Facebook about supporting her best friend. A few years pass, and the government started becoming more and more authoritarian. Finally, she gets a visit from the police, asking about her ties to her best friend, and is threatened with arrest unless she can prove she’s not tied to the protest as well.

I’m probably getting some details wrong, but it’s a thought that stuck with me. She didn’t have anything to hide at the time. But things change, and you can’t always predict what you’ll have wish you had kept private before.

“take of your pants.”

In digital world, there’s no backdoor that only the good guys can access. The possibility of a bad actor accessing the same data that a court order would provide always exists. The true way of being safe against bad actors is being privacy focused as much as possible.

I may be ill and want to keep it from my family and work for as long as possible in order to complete and prepare some things. Privacy should exist for all under this type of scenario but it should not overpower the publics right to know when the public is affected (example…possible pedophiles or sex ring at the top levels of government).

only thing i can think of is ask them really personal questions and then ask if they have something to hide if they dont want to tell you. And then escalate to ask access to their stuff so you can check for yourself if they still dont get the point. And finally point out that companies dont have to even ask, they just get that information without telling you because you agreed to whatever terms they have presented to you.

“arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

Any data that anybody collects of you today, they will keep. You might not be doing anything illegal today, but you have no way of knowing what will be declared illegal tomorrow, or by the next government, or the one after that, or if those will honor the principle of not punishing you for past breaches of new laws retroactively.

People in 1930 Germany did not know it would soon be illegal to have a relationship with a jew, or to talk negatively about Hitler. People in the 2024 USA didn’t think they would soon be in danger for filming ICE raids, or tracking their movements in chat groups.

Another argument is that your data that advertisers or the government collect doesn’t necessarily stay with them. Car manufacturers were shown ( article in German ) to have location tracking data of their customers’ vehicles on virtually unprotected servers facing the internet. Researchers were able to deduct from this data alone who worked for e.g. secret services, who likely cheated on their wife, where their kids went to school and so on. What do you think a malicious actor could do with information clearly showing at which times in a week your house is likely to be empty?

Information about you and your family and social contacts and chats can also be used to better scam you by impersonating somebody you know. “Hey dad, it’s X, got a new number. Can you transfer me some money till next week maybe?” Many people fall for that.

There are also other ways in which data can be used against you without anything strictly illegal happening. Do you really want your car insurance to have data about your driving habits?

Do you want your health insurance to know how often you order pizza? Both might get the idea to increase your payments for that in the future.

Would you want possible future employers to know you have a chronic disease that might mean you’ll call in sick more often than others?

Last but not least, have you never said or done anything really embarrassing that you’d just prefer nobody to know?