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‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

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Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#51

Post by ClumsyPilot »

antihipocrat wrote: post #17
baxtr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I was looking for real cases. Theory won't convince the nay-sayers

Real cases are everywhere, in front of everyone, every day. For example: Victims of domestic violence or stalking. Victims of personal vendettas or bigotry from figures in authority. Victims of exploitative employers. These victims have done nothing wrong and they need privacy. All kinds of people are randomly distributed throughout all professions and strata of society. Politicians, police, lawyers, doctors, posties…

> Real cases are everywhere, in front of everyone, every day

W He is looming to something that is well written and convincing, something salient. Punchy

Your post is not that. it is difficult to express this so wlel that it is irrefutable

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#52

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Karunamon wrote: post #18
momirlan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ask them to share their email password

Not a useful argument; anyone making the "nothing to hide" argument is implicitly arguing the trustworthiness (or the low likelihood of a mistake impacting them) of the state/justice system. You and other members of the general public are not part of that. This is also why the snippy "so you don't have (locks on your doors/blinds on your windows/etc.)?" comeback does not work.

> "nothing to hide" argument is implicitly arguing the trustworthiness (or the low likelihood of a mistake impacting them) of the state/justice system

There is a massive assumption that only justice systen will have access to this data. We know this data is sold to anyone, even criminals.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#53

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

g105b wrote: post #16

I also have nothing to hide, but I still choose to close my curtains at night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAkZT_4vL_Y

What's he building in there?

What the hell is he building in there?

He has subscriptions to those magazines

He never waves when he goes by

He's hiding something from the rest of us

He's all to himself

I think I know why

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#54

Post by glenstein »

tromp wrote: post #49

Here's the first listed criticism of the saying on its Wikipedia page [1], by none other than Edward Snowden: > 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

This one has confused me. A lot of the spirit of it I get behind; I am similarly indignant at the nothing to hide argument, I am similarly appreciative of the value of free speech, and I appreciate the idea that you might hope that you have "something to say", in the sense of having values, or ways in which you are engaged in the world that are important and meaningful to you. And I even understand and support the idea that you are letting a beautiful right go unused if you have "nothing to say."

But, with all of those elements in place, I don't see how they serve to counter the "nothing to hide" argument. As other commenters here have pointed out, and as the paper has pointed out, it's (1) nothing to hide, from whom, and (2) just because you believe your actions are innocent, doesn't mean your information won't be used against you to target you.

But that's very different than the point that is apparently being made about free speech. It may be a bummer to live a life where you have nothing to say, but the failure implied by that is of a different kind.

It may just be that I'm missing an obvious point, but, as far as I can tell, if you have "nothing to say", the problem is that you've resigned yourself to a life that doesn't assert any values or meaning. Meanwhile, the nothing to hide problem relates to not anticipating how bad actors will use your information against you.

It would be a 1:1 analogy if the point being made was, well, you have no information? If you have nothing to hide because you have no significant life attributes or life events, I can see a way that is a criticism of an unfulfilled life, and something that makes the comparison to free speech make sense. But... it's kind of lateral to the concerns about privacy that I take to be the most essential to maintaining it as a right. But again, I may just be missing something obvious.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#55

Post by [deleted] »

chacham15 wrote: post #45

The simplest retort I've heard to "I have nothing to hide" is "then send me a nude photo of yourself." Theres nothing wrong with nude bodies, but it is definitely private. I.e. privacy has nothing to do with hiding wrong/illegal things. (obligatory disclaimer: a little inaccuracy saves a lot of explanation, but I think this gets the gist across)

[deleted]

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#56

Post by c-linkage »

elwell wrote: post #33
ilyt wrote: post #22

I found out that asking people that got "nothing to hide so neither should you" to mount a video stream from their bedroom shuts them up right quick.

I don't have anything to hide from a person I can trust.

Correction: you don't have anything to hide from a person you believe you can trust.

That's how confidence schemes work.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#57

Post by the_lego »

tromp wrote: post #49

Here's the first listed criticism of the saying on its Wikipedia page [1], by none other than Edward Snowden: > 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

To elaborate: "nothing to hide" ignores the benefits to society that others, who do have something to hide, bring. Whistleblowers, various lawyers, activists, investigative journalists, labor organizers, etc.

Even if you have nothing to hide, you'll benefit immensely when, e.g., people with something to hide reveal your leaders are trying to goad you into a war under false pretenses.

To say nothing of how much the perspective changes if you live in a place like Russia or China. Historically, times and places where a good, honest person could bare their life to the government were few. How sure are you this period of relative beneficence of our governments towards its citizens will last, that you dare throw away yours and your children's freedom on the bet your future masters won't mean you harm?

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#58

Post by kypro »

deepthunder wrote: post #10

The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or…

I completely agree with this.

I live in the UK and when I raise concerns about government surveillance here people often say, "I've got nothing to hide".

I learnt of a case just this week where a guy on Reddit left a slightly controversial comment and ended up being charged with hate speech, lost his job and received hate abuse online for his opinion.

It was kinda crazy because "all" he said was that didn't care about a teen who died in police custody, specifically that this teen was a, "good for nothing, spice smoking, Toxteth monkey" (Toxteth being a fairly rough inner-city area of Liverpool).

The teen he was insulting was dead and unable to take offence, but the police officer on Reddit at the time took offence and decided to prosecute the guy anyway.

I'm bringing this up because I don't think most people in the UK realise this. Insulting people online or just saying something mildly offensive will often lead to prosecution. I mean just this week an autistic child got arrested for calling a lesbian police officer a lesbian here in the UK.

We all have something to hide when what's right and wrong is this arbitrary.

Legal notes:

I do not agree with the views of the Redditor referenced in my comment. I understand how someone may be offended by what he said, but disagree specifically with it being an offence to state an offensive position online.

I also do not agree with the behaviour autistic child mentioned in my comment. I understand that being autistic is not an excuse for being offensive. Again, I am only bringing this up because I do not believe it should be an offence to offend.

The offensive language used in my comment were direct quotes used specifically to make a point.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#59

Post by gcanyon »

karaterobot wrote: post #24

I got through 16 pages of the article, and he hadn't gotten to the point yet. He was summarizing previous articles he'd written. I understand that he's trying to steelman the "nothing to hide" argument, and has dispensed with the usual retorts (ably summarized in this thread so far). I'd like to know what his real response actually is. Did anybody get through the whole thing?

So much this. "I apologize for writing such a long essay; I did not have time to write a shorter one."

This is probably too brief, but here's Claude's take on a summary:

Here is a one page summary of the article "I've Got Nothing to Hide" and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy by Daniel J. Solove:

Solove argues that the "nothing to hide" argument, which contends that there is no threat to privacy if a person has nothing embarrassing or illegal to conceal, stems from a narrow conception of privacy. He proposes a pluralistic framework for understanding privacy, grounded in Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblances. Privacy violations consist of a web of related problems, not connected by a common element, but resembling each other.

Solove's taxonomy of privacy problems includes four categories: information collection, information processing, information dissemination, and invasion. Harms include chilling effects, power imbalances, breaches of confidentiality, and exclusion from decision-making processes. Many privacy issues cause structural problems rather than individual injuries.

The "nothing to hide" argument focuses too narrowly on disclosure of secrets. It fails to account for contextual integrity, social value in keeping promises of confidentiality, dangers of aggregation, problems of exclusion, and difficulties in rebutting predictive prophesies about one's behavior. The debate should center on oversight and accountability procedures, not whether certain government actions should be allowed. In short, by conceptualizing privacy more pluralistically, the deficiencies of the "nothing to hide" argument become apparent.

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