Privacy Matters
People underestimate privacy; so much so, that the value of privacy has become hidden, non-obvious. Why? The public is disillusioned and disinterested, with people holding these typical views: a lack of awareness (or disbelief) of the level of surveillance, they have “nothing to hide,” they assume nothing is private anymore, so what’s the point of being reminded of it? (the futility of privacy), or the convenience of modern life is worth giving up privacy (defeatist).
Let’s break down each of these arguments. Lack of awareness of privacy intrusion, is a case of not being informed. To be clear, governments, companies, and adversaries can view your most intimate details today.
The “nothing to hide” argument is a fallacy for two reasons: (1) The connotation that things discussed in private are bad. True, criminals may discuss illegal activity in private, but that does not mean everyone’s private conversations are illegal. (2) The notion of what needs “hiding” is subject to opinion, and changes over time. You may not be breaking any laws today, but if the law changes and governments have access to your past data, you are now vulnerable and have nowhere to hide.
It’s easy to grow accustomed to the constant data breaches and assume privacy is dead. But this fails to consider that consequences are not equally distributed across society. Those with valuable data invest in privacy protection. There’s a reason shell companies are more pervasive than ever (read Moneyland), corporations make you sign non-disclosure and mediation agreements, and governments still have secrets. Ask yourself who suffers the most during a data breach, I guarantee you it’s not the executives at Equifax and Facebook.
Convenience is a tough habit to break, and the sad reality is that many of today’s indispensable technologies are abusing their users’ privacy. Many users make this tradeoff, often getting a service for “free” by selling themselves short. Why short? Because privacy is valuable, and though hard to measure, it’s more valuable than you might think:
The human mind needs the freedom to think, without worry, without fear, without consequence; and privacy provides this environment. The best ideas emerge from thinking in private spaces - not in a meeting or town hall debate. It works this way because in private you can test the limits, be creative and carefree and think outside of the box. Maybe most importantly, you can be wrong, controversial, ask the questions no one asks, and then you can simply move on to the next idea without any judgment. Privacy also prevents bias, the bias of others, and removes the self censorship to adhere to others’ perceptions. All in, privacy gets to the truth faster. Add this up across all people, and you realize that privacy is the lifeblood of human progress, its value is uncapped human potential.
Companies understand this and sell “free” services to tap into that unlimited profit stream. But the consumer is getting a sucker’s deal, capped upside and unlimited downside. Get a service with a fixed benefit (i.e. photo sharing), give up any future benefit from data you provide to the company (i.e. advertising revenue), and expose yourself to the risk of data mismanagement (i.e. identity theft).
Privacy matters to governments and corporations. It’s time for privacy to matter to society and individuals.
