Wow! Black Mirror's Nosedive (Season 3 Episode 1) [1] is straight out of reality.
Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
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Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
#22Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask: 1) Where were you last night? 2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt? 3) What is your Debit Card PIN/account password/... 4) What is your address? Your families address? 5) Can I see your key? And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward…
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Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
#23Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask: 1) Where were you last night? 2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt? 3) What is your Debit Card PIN/account password/... 4) What is your address? Your families address? 5) Can I see your key? And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward…
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Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
#24Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask: 1) Where were you last night? 2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt? 3) What is your Debit Card PIN/account password/... 4) What is your address? Your families address? 5) Can I see your key? And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward…
Most people understand that there is a distinction between having nothing to hide from randos on the Internet asking about my life and having nothing to hide from the legal system of my country. Your line of questioning is not an argument for most people.
Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
#25The point is that the majority of people live boring lives and don't have enough wealth to be a valuable target. I certainly fall into this category. I'm not important or interesting enough that anyone is going to look into me.
It's possible that one day I'll become very important and then I'll wish that I had kept various embarrassing things from getting out. It's also possible that I'll become a billionaire. Neither outcome seems likely enough for me to change my daily behavior.
People are generally not willing to endure even the slightest inconvenience for the sake of a philosophical concept like privacy. I've seen people make big changes in response to widespread negative outcomes (ie, coronavirus), but I couldn't imagine a similar response to an intangible issue like potential privacy violations.
Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
#26Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask: 1) Where were you last night? 2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt? 3) What is your Debit Card PIN/account password/... 4) What is your address? Your families address? 5) Can I see your key? And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward…
This is an important phenomenon that I think is really tricky to tackle. Because, I think your observation is 100% true. But, it also comes off as rude.
But it really is probably the case that most people making general statements to the effect of "I've got nothing to hide" don't actually believe what they are saying, or they haven't fully worked out the implications.
Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
#27Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask: 1) Where were you last night? 2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt? 3) What is your Debit Card PIN/account password/... 4) What is your address? Your families address? 5) Can I see your key? And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward…
You could argue that there are some obvious things that should be kept secret, but not what can be tracked on the internet etc for purposes of providing you better recommendations or improving your life in general.
That being said I'm a very private person and I wouldn't want to give out any data, but just playing a devil's advocate here.
Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
#28If you have Android, go to Settings -> Privacy -> Permission Manager and double check the permissions granted to the apps on your phone. You would be surprised at what is there...why does a musical tuner app need to know my location??
Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
#29They are absolutely correct, as was a commenter that explicitly described what "privacy" means.
The issue is that corporations, like Facebook, have some very sweet "desserts" to entice people to abrogate their privacy. Alternatives have always given great privacy (spinach), but little in the way of a replacement for the "candies" that Facebook offers.
Facebook is incredibly valuable, and can afford to hire vast armies of engineers and psychologists, all dedicated to getting their "product" (that's users) to make themselves more "productive." Think farmers, giving hogs higher-protein, better-tasting food.
Until alternatives can provide a better "dessert" experience, and only offer spinach, then the vast majority of users won't come to them.
Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”
#30Interesting topic.
I think, most people have something to hide but they think they could hide it even if the circumstances getting harder.
If things are hard to hide and you can still manage to hide them, you will be questioned even less. Because who would go through all that trouble?