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”?
I was really interested coming into this thread, because although I am conscious about privacy I sometimes wonder why I bother.
Unfortunately none of the counterarguments in the comments are convincing at all.
Analogies with letting someone see you naked are stupid. We’re not talking about naked photos, were talking about stuff like your age range and what newspaper you read. I don’t care who knows that.
“Future authoritarian governments could use it against you” isn’t worth worrying about. The government will have access to official records and can question you in person. Your ethnicity, religion, politics and sexuality are all easily found out whether you post them online or not. The fact that some advertising start up knows them will make no difference.
“If someone knows enough about you they can tailor Facebook ads to control your mind” is just sci fi conspiracy theory paranoia. Besides which they could run the same ads without targeting and I’d be just as mind controlled even if my data was a secret.
Edit: I really don’t mind getting downvotes, but if anyone has time to make an actual counterargument that would be great
There’s a certain irony in the degree of privacy discussion and advocacy on the fediverse, where even your upvotes and downvotes are part of the public record.
That’s, coupled with lackluster security vetting for server software and infrastructure across multiple instances means that invariably cross correlating your likes of furry porn with the email used in the account is going to happen in the future.
A lot of people are going to end up burned thinking that “non-corporate operation” = ‘private.’
I’m curious how many people actually think that, although it’s unknowable of course.
You’re right in that a huge portion of people would certainly make that assumption.
However, i would argue that the fediverse & open source in general is more “privacy respecting” because we can have a discussion about exactly what is disclosed and why it is disclosed.
In practice, using the web without leaking information about our preferences is pretty much impossible. “Privacy” (on and off the web) is never about “no disclosure”, it’s always about what needs to be disclosed, why it needs to be disclosed, and whether I personally am comfortable disclosing in exchange for whatever service I am seeking.
I has some degree of privacy. A better way to look at it is to say: It’s less worst ! But full privacy is to shut down all your connected electric aplliances, never connect to the web, sell your house and go living of the grid.
Just ask them a bunch of indiscreet questions. Do you watch porn? What category of porn turns you on the most? Do you think it’s appropriate to have sex in a room on the ground floor without curtains? What? You own curtains? What is your salary? What’s the amount of money in your savings account? Why do you have so many loud disagreements with your partner? Don’t you like visiting your in-laws? What’s inside the drawer at the bottom, next to your bed? Have you had any embarassing and cringy moments in the last few years you’d like to share?
Of course this is only the beginning. It’s not like the corporations collect data and then don’t do anything with it. You’d also have to be okay with them deducing information about you. Try to use that information to manipulate you into giving them attention, buying the stuff they want you to buy. That system is in place to nudge you into thinking what the algorithm wants you to think. App developers are actively trying to make the apps more addicting so you spend more time with them… People just get exploited with the help of all of that data.
If people really are that tame and have no secret fantasies, no sensitive data, no shame, no personal shortcomings they’d like to forget… And they don’t care about the annual security breaches of big platforms people use willingly, but that information then gets used by people who use it to send you spam or impersonate you and trick your grandma to send her retirement to some scammer… And they like to be shoved around by big corporations like cattle, used to fuel the capitalist system… …I myself tend to leave them alone. There is nothing that can be done at this point. Those people are lost, and they don’t want freedom for themselves.
I don’t think this works, because any sexual stuff they don’t think google / Mega Corp cares about. Which is true google doesn’t give a shit if you have sex without curtains, they only care if you are shopping for curtains.
And the rest of the questions only matter if you are running for office or something which again 99.9% aren’t, so they don’t give a shit.
I’m all for privacy, but the argument I have nothing to hide except bank account passwords etc is hard to argue with, when it comes to the average person, because the truth is that they don’t matter and most likely no-one cares about their specific data.
Most data is only valuable in mass, unless you’re being criminally investigated or something.
I think we’re talking about an abstract concept here. The example with the sex questions is more of a metaphor/image to make you remember there is stuff out there, we’d like to keep private. It’s not necessarily your main concern regarding google. Those are different things but way less graphic and more difficult to explain, so i went with this example instead.
only matter if you are running for office or something
You’re close to the category of people i described last. You don’t care for freedom. You don’t care your attention is guided by other people. Information that is shown to you is gated by algorithms. And their power to manipulate you comes from the knowledge they have about you.
no-one cares about their specific data
Au contraire. Companies pay big money for data. The more specific, the more valuable. The biggest companies of today, like amazon, google, twitter, meta… Their business model is to collect data about you, sell advertisements, maybe even sell the data they’ve collected about you. And all of that is worth billions and billions of dollars. Why do you think they let you use TikTok or YouTube or something for free and the comany still makes millions? You’re right. That’s the cumulative sum. Your own data maybe is only worth 15$ to some company. Maybe more to some hacker if your credit card info gets leaked, too. But it doesn’t make it any better if you’re not the only one who gets exploited, but you’re part of an exploited majority… The TikTok algorithm, the ads etc are specifically tailored to your personality. To influence specifically your attention.
And what do you even tell the few people who actually suffer consequences? Like, i read stories about women being stalked with the help of social media. Sometimes even police officers using their computers to stalk ex partners. Their data gets collected in mass. And stored for legitimate reasons… Do you tell them: Bad luck you’re being stalked by some scummy person? We the 99.9% of people don’t have this specific problem?
I care a lot about freedom and my personal privacy. The data collected by apps doesn’t invade my privacy, and cannot reliably be used to harm me in any way, so I don’t care.
Do you care that you’re on video at the bank? Same thing.
Sorry, i’m really at a loss here. I don’t understand. App data is used to make you transparent. To learn something about you to sell advertisements and show them to exactly those people who are the most likely to be influenced by it. This is how targeted advertisement works.
You’re right. You’re not ‘harmed’ in the original meaning of the word. You’re just being manipulated. And so are millions of other people on the internet.
It isn’t used to make anything of me at all. You don’t seem to understand how this data is collected, aggregated and sold.
Literally no one has a profile on me specifically. Relevant bits of data are captured and filtered and packaged and sold without any human interaction.
There is no database entry for you as a person.
I’m not being manipulated because I am neither 12 nor a Republican.
How do you think TikTok recommends videos you like? How do you think YouTube shows you videos about astronomy or diy-stuff or whatever you like and omit the videos about kajaking? How do you think amazon recommends you similar items or shows you what you bought in the last 6 months?
They all have a specific profile for you as a person. It doesn’t really matter if they don’t file it with your real name as a key. It may be called a number or just contain your email address. Nonetheless it get’s loaded and used when you open your browser, when you log in to those services. Rest assured they know you and your behaviours well enough. They don’t need to store your name along with that. And don’t tell me you have 20 google accounts, clear your cookies and have all the browser extensions installed to evade all of that.
TikTok recommends me stand-up comedy and thicc goth girls because that’s what I’ve swiped on. Every now and then MTG card reviews pop up because I think that dude is funny.
I’m not a child, so I’m capable of curating shit I watch
I’m a huge fan of TikTok and YouTube’s algos because they show me shit I am interested in. Same with my targeted ads, except for the shitty mobile game ones.
Regardless, this is not a specific profile for me as a person. It’s a profile for that service, on this phone, taking some info from common internet connection points.
“the data collected by apps… Cannot reliably be used to harm me”
So you’re saying that someone can’t use your location, recordings of your audible surroundings, recordings of your devices camera view, and whom you may be interacting with cannot be used to harm you?
Perhaps you never heard of the psychological targeting done for political purposes through the misuse of mass data. (Cambridge Analytics)
Edit: to be clear, people in the comments have already provided many examples of situations where corporations/governing bodies have misused specific people’s personal data (zoom employees watching webcams without knowledge), however I also don’t think it makes sense to brush off the impact of mass data available as a result of much of the population freely giving away their personal data.
I’m all for privacy, but the argument I have nothing to hide … is hard to argue with, when it comes to the average person, because the truth is that they don’t matter and most likely no-one cares about their specific data.
In that case, please post your real name, tax id (SSN in the States) and annual household income.
but the argument I have nothing to hide except bank account passwords etc is hard to argue with
It’s simple to argue against: any and all data points are either potential threat vectors, or will in aggregate paint a better picture of the individual they pertain to, for the data’s possessor to use as they wish. A default-deny policy for data creation/access makes as much sense for individuals as it does workplaces.
I get it, I’m telling you why it doesn’t resonate with 99% of people. Once you have to explain threat vectors people shut it down and call you a paranoid person.
Again, I don’t agree with it I’m just telling you why I have nothing to hide is so pervasive.
This is a great question to use because how many of these people have given their smartphone location permissions? Google knows when they speed already.
And that is why it’s hard to explain. People live different lives. What’s unimportant to some may be important to many others. It’s not all the same. Privacy loss is not an immediate problem. But if and when it becomes a problem, it’s a huge damn problem for an individual.
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
You may have nothing to hide now but what if your (political) opponents reach a point where they have access to your data and the (political) power to use it? What happens if they don’t like your opinions which (you think) you don’t have to hide now?
My opinions may mostly align with the current general consensus in my country and since I’m not politically active I am rather unlikely to be harmed because of my opinions in the foreseeable future (unless I call someone 1 Pimmel). But there are certain developments that are troubling and there are people who don’t like what I’ve said on the internet (duh). Now, I’m not exactly anyone important and realistically there are far more important targets than me personally. But still, it’s not unthinkable that the things I’ve said (things I’ve looked at on the internet, things I’ve bought, things I’ve like/upvoted) might be used to my detriment if certain people came into a position where they have access to any stored data on me.
This applies regardless of your political leanings. If data exists, no matter how harmless it may seem, there’s always the possibility of people who REALLY don’t like it getting access.
Do you go around showing your grandma photos of your asshole? Like, during church and everything? Because if yes I wanna hang with your granny she sounds cool but that’s beside the point.
Having a hobby that’s considered embarrassing or childish
Having a psycho stalker
Buying a present from Santa
A reporter who doesn’t want to reveal their sources
Buying a toilet and you don’t want toilet recommendations for the rest of your life
Lending your computer to someone, and you don’t want your recommended videos to change
Under an NDA
… Or maybe you’re talking with someone who’s in one of those categories.
We have to normalise privacy in order to keep these people safe. For instance, it’s a stupid example but it works, if I always use private browser windows, my husband won’t suspect anything when I’m looking for a gift for him.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg and it’s not even touching some bigger problems:
You can be profiled based on your likes, social media posts, purchase history, etc, and maybe used for election results manipulation, or who knows what else. That’s not a conspiracy theory, it has happened, see for instance Cambridge Analytica.
Maybe the political situation will change in the future. Oops, now your data is suddenly in the hands of a malicious dictator.
If you keep a backdoor open to let the “good and trusted” actors in, there’s no way to not let malicious actors in as well.
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I was really interested coming into this thread, because although I am conscious about privacy I sometimes wonder why I bother.
Unfortunately none of the counterarguments in the comments are convincing at all.
Analogies with letting someone see you naked are stupid. We’re not talking about naked photos, were talking about stuff like your age range and what newspaper you read. I don’t care who knows that.
“Future authoritarian governments could use it against you” isn’t worth worrying about. The government will have access to official records and can question you in person. Your ethnicity, religion, politics and sexuality are all easily found out whether you post them online or not. The fact that some advertising start up knows them will make no difference.
“If someone knows enough about you they can tailor Facebook ads to control your mind” is just sci fi conspiracy theory paranoia. Besides which they could run the same ads without targeting and I’d be just as mind controlled even if my data was a secret.
Edit: I really don’t mind getting downvotes, but if anyone has time to make an actual counterargument that would be great
There’s a certain irony in the degree of privacy discussion and advocacy on the fediverse, where even your upvotes and downvotes are part of the public record.
That’s, coupled with lackluster security vetting for server software and infrastructure across multiple instances means that invariably cross correlating your likes of furry porn with the email used in the account is going to happen in the future.
A lot of people are going to end up burned thinking that “non-corporate operation” = ‘private.’
I’m curious how many people actually think that, although it’s unknowable of course.
You’re right in that a huge portion of people would certainly make that assumption.
However, i would argue that the fediverse & open source in general is more “privacy respecting” because we can have a discussion about exactly what is disclosed and why it is disclosed.
In practice, using the web without leaking information about our preferences is pretty much impossible. “Privacy” (on and off the web) is never about “no disclosure”, it’s always about what needs to be disclosed, why it needs to be disclosed, and whether I personally am comfortable disclosing in exchange for whatever service I am seeking.
I has some degree of privacy. A better way to look at it is to say: It’s less worst ! But full privacy is to shut down all your connected electric aplliances, never connect to the web, sell your house and go living of the grid.
Gee whiz, that sounds like something to hide!
Just ask them a bunch of indiscreet questions. Do you watch porn? What category of porn turns you on the most? Do you think it’s appropriate to have sex in a room on the ground floor without curtains? What? You own curtains? What is your salary? What’s the amount of money in your savings account? Why do you have so many loud disagreements with your partner? Don’t you like visiting your in-laws? What’s inside the drawer at the bottom, next to your bed? Have you had any embarassing and cringy moments in the last few years you’d like to share?
Of course this is only the beginning. It’s not like the corporations collect data and then don’t do anything with it. You’d also have to be okay with them deducing information about you. Try to use that information to manipulate you into giving them attention, buying the stuff they want you to buy. That system is in place to nudge you into thinking what the algorithm wants you to think. App developers are actively trying to make the apps more addicting so you spend more time with them… People just get exploited with the help of all of that data.
If people really are that tame and have no secret fantasies, no sensitive data, no shame, no personal shortcomings they’d like to forget… And they don’t care about the annual security breaches of big platforms people use willingly, but that information then gets used by people who use it to send you spam or impersonate you and trick your grandma to send her retirement to some scammer… And they like to be shoved around by big corporations like cattle, used to fuel the capitalist system… …I myself tend to leave them alone. There is nothing that can be done at this point. Those people are lost, and they don’t want freedom for themselves.
I don’t think this works, because any sexual stuff they don’t think google / Mega Corp cares about. Which is true google doesn’t give a shit if you have sex without curtains, they only care if you are shopping for curtains.
And the rest of the questions only matter if you are running for office or something which again 99.9% aren’t, so they don’t give a shit.
I’m all for privacy, but the argument I have nothing to hide except bank account passwords etc is hard to argue with, when it comes to the average person, because the truth is that they don’t matter and most likely no-one cares about their specific data.
Most data is only valuable in mass, unless you’re being criminally investigated or something.
I think we’re talking about an abstract concept here. The example with the sex questions is more of a metaphor/image to make you remember there is stuff out there, we’d like to keep private. It’s not necessarily your main concern regarding google. Those are different things but way less graphic and more difficult to explain, so i went with this example instead.
You’re close to the category of people i described last. You don’t care for freedom. You don’t care your attention is guided by other people. Information that is shown to you is gated by algorithms. And their power to manipulate you comes from the knowledge they have about you.
Au contraire. Companies pay big money for data. The more specific, the more valuable. The biggest companies of today, like amazon, google, twitter, meta… Their business model is to collect data about you, sell advertisements, maybe even sell the data they’ve collected about you. And all of that is worth billions and billions of dollars. Why do you think they let you use TikTok or YouTube or something for free and the comany still makes millions? You’re right. That’s the cumulative sum. Your own data maybe is only worth 15$ to some company. Maybe more to some hacker if your credit card info gets leaked, too. But it doesn’t make it any better if you’re not the only one who gets exploited, but you’re part of an exploited majority… The TikTok algorithm, the ads etc are specifically tailored to your personality. To influence specifically your attention.
And what do you even tell the few people who actually suffer consequences? Like, i read stories about women being stalked with the help of social media. Sometimes even police officers using their computers to stalk ex partners. Their data gets collected in mass. And stored for legitimate reasons… Do you tell them: Bad luck you’re being stalked by some scummy person? We the 99.9% of people don’t have this specific problem?
I care a lot about freedom and my personal privacy. The data collected by apps doesn’t invade my privacy, and cannot reliably be used to harm me in any way, so I don’t care.
Do you care that you’re on video at the bank? Same thing.
Sorry, i’m really at a loss here. I don’t understand. App data is used to make you transparent. To learn something about you to sell advertisements and show them to exactly those people who are the most likely to be influenced by it. This is how targeted advertisement works.
You’re right. You’re not ‘harmed’ in the original meaning of the word. You’re just being manipulated. And so are millions of other people on the internet.
It isn’t used to make anything of me at all. You don’t seem to understand how this data is collected, aggregated and sold.
Literally no one has a profile on me specifically. Relevant bits of data are captured and filtered and packaged and sold without any human interaction.
There is no database entry for you as a person.
I’m not being manipulated because I am neither 12 nor a Republican.
How do you think TikTok recommends videos you like? How do you think YouTube shows you videos about astronomy or diy-stuff or whatever you like and omit the videos about kajaking? How do you think amazon recommends you similar items or shows you what you bought in the last 6 months?
They all have a specific profile for you as a person. It doesn’t really matter if they don’t file it with your real name as a key. It may be called a number or just contain your email address. Nonetheless it get’s loaded and used when you open your browser, when you log in to those services. Rest assured they know you and your behaviours well enough. They don’t need to store your name along with that. And don’t tell me you have 20 google accounts, clear your cookies and have all the browser extensions installed to evade all of that.
TikTok recommends me stand-up comedy and thicc goth girls because that’s what I’ve swiped on. Every now and then MTG card reviews pop up because I think that dude is funny.
I’m not a child, so I’m capable of curating shit I watch
I’m a huge fan of TikTok and YouTube’s algos because they show me shit I am interested in. Same with my targeted ads, except for the shitty mobile game ones.
Regardless, this is not a specific profile for me as a person. It’s a profile for that service, on this phone, taking some info from common internet connection points.
“the data collected by apps… Cannot reliably be used to harm me”
So you’re saying that someone can’t use your location, recordings of your audible surroundings, recordings of your devices camera view, and whom you may be interacting with cannot be used to harm you?
Correct.
Perhaps you never heard of the psychological targeting done for political purposes through the misuse of mass data. (Cambridge Analytics)
Edit: to be clear, people in the comments have already provided many examples of situations where corporations/governing bodies have misused specific people’s personal data (zoom employees watching webcams without knowledge), however I also don’t think it makes sense to brush off the impact of mass data available as a result of much of the population freely giving away their personal data.
In that case, please post your real name, tax id (SSN in the States) and annual household income.
N.B. None of this information is private.
Yea obviously not that… Like I said bank account stuff everyone gets… Google isn’t harvesting bank account numbers.
Privacy and not getting hacked is not the same thing.
My point is that most people just keep their banking safe and don’t care about the rest, hence “I got nothing to hide” attitude
but the argument I have nothing to hide except bank account passwords etc is hard to argue withIt’s simple to argue against: any and all data points are either potential threat vectors, or will in aggregate paint a better picture of the individual they pertain to, for the data’s possessor to use as they wish. A default-deny policy for data creation/access makes as much sense for individuals as it does workplaces.
I get it, I’m telling you why it doesn’t resonate with 99% of people. Once you have to explain threat vectors people shut it down and call you a paranoid person.
Again, I don’t agree with it I’m just telling you why I have nothing to hide is so pervasive.
And also “do you always obey the speed limit in your car, and who is your insurance company?” or something among those lines…
This is a great question to use because how many of these people have given their smartphone location permissions? Google knows when they speed already.
Bonus points if they use Android auto, which knows your speed and the speed limit.
Pull out your phone, state “You’re ok with this, right?! After all you have nothing to hide” and very overtly put it in voice recording mode.
Then start asking the questions.
Ask if they close their window blinds at night
The Jews in 1939 Germany did nothing wrong.
Ask them for nudes, their porn habits, what toys they have and what their dirtiest kinks are.
I post that information publicly all the time.
Could you do that now? Along with all your social media accounts, your real life address and your place of work?
If you have nothing to hide, you wouldn’t mind handing me your unlocked phone so I can scroll through your texts and search history, go ahead.
Sorry, that would take too long, but I’ll send a copy so they can see how utterly boring/undocumented my life is.
And that is why it’s hard to explain. People live different lives. What’s unimportant to some may be important to many others. It’s not all the same. Privacy loss is not an immediate problem. But if and when it becomes a problem, it’s a huge damn problem for an individual.
Almost a throw away line, but in the original Red Dawn the invading commander issues orders to seize govt records on gun holders as a target.
deleted by creator
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.
Every corporation ever
related post
This is a good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
You may have nothing to hide now but what if your (political) opponents reach a point where they have access to your data and the (political) power to use it? What happens if they don’t like your opinions which (you think) you don’t have to hide now?
My opinions may mostly align with the current general consensus in my country and since I’m not politically active I am rather unlikely to be harmed because of my opinions in the foreseeable future (unless I call someone 1 Pimmel). But there are certain developments that are troubling and there are people who don’t like what I’ve said on the internet (duh). Now, I’m not exactly anyone important and realistically there are far more important targets than me personally. But still, it’s not unthinkable that the things I’ve said (things I’ve looked at on the internet, things I’ve bought, things I’ve like/upvoted) might be used to my detriment if certain people came into a position where they have access to any stored data on me.
This applies regardless of your political leanings. If data exists, no matter how harmless it may seem, there’s always the possibility of people who REALLY don’t like it getting access.
Do you go around showing your grandma photos of your asshole? Like, during church and everything? Because if yes I wanna hang with your granny she sounds cool but that’s beside the point.
Well, maybe you are:
… Or maybe you’re talking with someone who’s in one of those categories.
We have to normalise privacy in order to keep these people safe. For instance, it’s a stupid example but it works, if I always use private browser windows, my husband won’t suspect anything when I’m looking for a gift for him.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg and it’s not even touching some bigger problems: