I know data privacy is important and I know that big corporations like Meta became powerful enough to even manipulate elections using our data.
But, when I talk to people in general, most seem to not worry because they “have nothing to hide”, and most are only worried about their passwords, banking apps and not much else.
So, why should people worry about data privacy even if they have “nothing to hide”?
One thing I often see is people not understanding the difference between secrecy and privacy. They ask why it matters if you’re not doing anything wrong. A UK government minister actually said “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”, and then backpedaled when someone pointed out they were quoting Joseph Goebbels. The analogy I’ve seen is simple: I’m sure you don’t do anything illegal in the shower, but I’m also pretty sure most people would be uncomfortable with a law that required you to have a police officer standing in you bathroom with a video camera to record you showering, just in case.
The other thing is the assumption that any information about you that the government actually has about you will only be used against you if you commit a crime, in which case you’ll deserve it - if you’re not a bad person then it’s fine. This is a double fallacy.
First, we’ve seen that information can be used to do all sorts of things regardless of wrongdoing - if someone knows enough about you, they can use it to manipulate you. I don’t mean blackmail or whatever, although that’s an option. I mean that with a clear enough picture of your preferences and biases and habits, someone can tailor their actions and information to your psychology and make you think whatever they want you to agree with.
Second, it assumes that you won’t ever commit a crime because crimes are bad things and you’re not a bad person. This overlooks the possibility of you being mistakenly accused while innocent, but more importantly it overlooks the possibility that the government will change into something that holds different moral values to yours. Even in the modern world we’ve seen places outlaw abortions, or criminalise homosexuality, or pass laws on what religions you’re allowed to follow. If that happens in your country and you find yourself on the wrong side of whatever arbitrary line they’ve now drawn, you may regret giving them so much information about you - information that lets them identify you, prove that you broke their new rules, and ruin your life in so many ways.
The default principal of any exchange with governments, businesses, or any entity taking your information should be to give as much information as is required for them to perform the operation you’re requesting of them, and no more - and wherever possible to only engage with those entities that you trust to have that information; a trust that they earn by a verified and unbroken track record of ethical and trustworthy behaviour.
This is great, well done.
“But, when I talk to people in general, most seem to not worry because they “have nothing to hide”, and most are only worried about their passwords, banking apps and not much else.”
Sounds like they have passwords and banking apps to hide, You should demand their bank account and credit card details to verify that they have made no illicit actions.
If they point out that they have no reason to trust you with that information, that’s when you point out that police, government, or corporate groups are made out of people just like yourself. They might have some codes of conduct, or a vetting process, but it just takes one person malicious or careless enough for you to be severely impacted.
It’s simpler actually, despite all the words the state still communicates a certain atmosphere of intimidation. When you submit something to the police, it’s not because you consider it obviously right, it’s because you obey their order.
So despite legalities being different, for privacy people still feel afraid to say that they’d hide something.
It’s a matter of emotion. They are not afraid of you, but they are afraid of police. For some people this means that showing something to you is fine and to police not, for others (the majority) - the opposite. You won’t hurt them, police may.
What if I also don’t worry about these and don’t store my banking information?
So you’re hiding your bank information?
Physically
Yeah cause corporations are going to steal money off my card. I’d have zero issues sharing that data if their water a reason… I regularrly share steam/gamepass password. You people are insane with broken logic.
Ask them for their social security number, mother’s maiden name, favorite pet, favorite teacher, high school mascot. It should start to dawn on them
Ask them for their kids’ social security number, DOB, etc. I’ve done that a couple of times and it always gets a reaction.
People are less concerned about themselves, but generally very protective of their children… and rightfully so.
Saying “I don’t need privacy because I’ve got nothing to hide” is like saying “I don’t need free speech because I’ve got nothing to say”.
Yet here you are, posting on a website that doesn’t allow absolute free speech.
I like this simil.
Data privacy isn’t to protect you from getting caught doing wrong things, it’s to prevent malicious actors from having the information to manipulate you. You don’t want phishers to have access to your life details that security questions ask about, even if each one is nothing to hide. You don’t want scammers to know where you went to school, who your teachers were, and what clubs you were in to build up a convincing backstory for their facade. You don’t want someone who wants to get something out of you to know who is important to you and threaten or impersonate them. It’s not about having something to hide, it’s about hiding personal details from those with malicious intent
This exactly, and the more victims the scammers can get the more it supports their endeavors.
You don’t want someone who wants to get something out of you
Every corporation ever
I feel like most replies here are missing the point.
The entire premise of the statement is that privacy is about defending your dirty secrets. When people say “nothing to hide” they’re really saying “I’m not going to post about anything I want to hide”, but that still misses the point.
For me it’s the subtle principles of advertising. I don’t want to be advertised to, at all. I certainly don’t want some blog to know what adverts I’m likely to engage with, because that is simply none of their business.
That’s it. If that doesn’t bother some people, that’s entirely fine. I’m a bit weird, and the whole idea of being tracked to figure out what things I might want to buy makes me very grumpy.
I am doing a paper on this. Privacy as hiding something shameful is a dated concept, like, before villages were a thing. I haven’t time to develop, but privacy was always a privilege of the rich. Back when people were in villages and technology was word of mouth, rich from the time being were in their castles. Knowing what is on peoples mind is a old form of control, while having the right of privacy is freedom. I am a grad student and I have to develop more on the subject, but it’s not about hiding your porn watchlist, lol. It’s about having control of your own decisions. If you understand how someone thinks, changing and satisfying (or pretending to) is actually pretty easy.
If anyone like Futurama, watch the “Killer App” episode
It’s wrong to be dismissive. Hiding something shameful is now, and will likely always be, a critical element of privacy. I agree that it’s not the whole story (or perhaps even the most important part) but it’s certainly the part that people many people spend the most time thinking about.
I hate ads, with a burning passion, but when I get stuck with one that’s wildly irrelevant to my interests, I know that I’m doing something right. Feels good to be a blank spot on the algorithm.
sometimes i get ads for like maternity stuff or jewelry or cars
i’m a guy with a vasectomy and not enough money for a car
it’s very funny
You’re not weird ! Quite the contrary, we are on the right path to fight those greedy corporation !! To bad we’re the minority ://!
Edward Snowden remarked:
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.
There is a wikipedia article regarding this argument
This is a nice quote, however it misses the goal of the original post.
For example, I fall into the group of people that don’t care about their digital privacy, but I fully support anyone who decides to go invisible on the internet.
Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and government whistleblower, has been credited with the quote “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”. Snowden has argued that privacy is a fundamental right and that without it, individuals cannot have anything for themselves. The “nothing to hide” argument has been used to defend the collection and use of government data beyond surveillance and disclosure, but critics argue that it is inherently paradoxical and that what is hidden is not necessarily relevant. Snowden has also stated that the burden of justification falls on those seeking to infringe upon human rights, and that nobody needs to justify why they “need” a right.
They are appealing to the fallacy that hiding things means bad behavior.
Not true. There are plenty of good reasons to hide things. Social security numbers, income, bank account info, even personal preferences.
Privacy != bad
Cite historical examples of seemingly innocuous and public information falling into the wrong hands.
e.g. The Nazis used demographic records (marriages, births, christenings, etc.) in conquered lands to ID Jews and other “undesirables”.
deleted by creator
The couldn’t the person just cite all the times that hasn’t happened?
I don’t think so. Examples of it happening demonstrate that it can happen. OTHO, examples of it not happening does not demonstrate that it cannot happen.
Just because it has a chance to happen doesn’t mean it’s an inevitability.
Feels like an example of confirmation bias.
I’m not even saying I agree. I think privacy is important. I’m just playing devil’s advocate for the OPs question.
It doesn’t have to be inevitable in order to serve as an example of what can happen when even seemingly innocuous information falls into the wrong hands. It’s happened before, and the consequences were horrifying. It will happen again, particularly if people refuse to learn from the examples of history.
Information is knowledge. Knowledge is power. And power in the wrong hands is dangerous.
That feels like a scapegoat argument. That reduces down to “bad things happen when bad people do bad things.”
You can argue against anything when you say that.
"Dentists should be outlawed because some dentists have abused their clients " Isn’t a fair argument either.
That is not a fair or accurate characterization of what I have been saying.
How could you explain it better for an argument then?
A bit more historic, but still very relevant. The FBI used surveillance in repeated attempts to discredit Martin Luther King JR. It’s chilling how they used the information they gathered to try to get rid of MLK any way they could. They were even trying to use information they gathered to convince him to commit suicide.
Maybe you don’t think you have anything to hide today, but what about the future? Millions of women gave their period-tracking apps that kind of personal/private data when Roe was in effect because at the time, states couldn’t use it to prosecute women who miscarry or get abortions. Now that Roe is gone, that data is out there and can’t be recalled.
By the same token, everyone who went out and got a 23-and-me genetic test gave their genomes to private companies who can legally sell that information to insurance companies that can use that information to hike their premiums or terminate their policies if they think your genes predispose you to some expensive-to-treat condition. Also those family trees don’t lie about whose kids are the product of adultery, hahahahaha
You do have things to hide in the sense that they’re nobody else’s business.
Also, some countries have established digital privacy as a right (in particular, EU countries) and that’s not just about protecting your dirty stinky secrets, it’s also about preventing social media being weaponized as political or information warfare vectors based on private information obtained without your consent. (the same profiling used to target relevant commercial ads to you is also usable to target information warfare and propaganda to your susceptible relatives, and they vote in addition to giving racist rants at holiday dinner)
In other words, your privacy is intrinsically valuable- if it wasn’t, exploiting your private information wouldn’t be a multi-billion-dollar industry
It is like saying you don’t need free speech if you don’t have anything to say. *corrected hide to say.
Or you don’t need free speech because you have nothing to say personally.
Sadly, plenty of people wouldn’t care about that argument
The awful story from that mother and daughter that had their private conversations send to court for abortion by Meta: https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/11/teen-and-mom-plead-guilty-to-abortion-charges-based-on-facebook-data/?guccounter=1
The thing that astounds me about this story and those like it is that people discuss such things on unencrypted messaging apps. As much as possible, I don’t discuss anything more significant than the weather on those platforms.
I use a monetary argument… If my data can become revenue to the company then I must have a part of this revenue …if they are not paying me for my property (my data) then I should keep my data from them
Additionally, and more deleterious, if a company knows you’re looking to take a vacation, or to buy new shoes, they can increase the price that is served to you across all of your internet searches. This is the counter to the privacy argument which separates automated/computer knowledge vs personal knowledge. It’s one thing for someone to be reading all of my Gmail, which is creepy and invasive, vs Alphabet scanning my email and building a consumer profile on me so that all of my searches are tagged and referenced to extract maximum value from my online purchases, which isn’t creepy or invasive (imho) but may materially affect my quality of live which is bad in a totally different way.
Wow great addition man…this is way better argument
