What harm does public data have to you? Couldn’t one just ignore the ads? You can’t see anyone watching you, is public data good for public records? (I’m just curious). I know this sounds weird but is public data good for historical preservation and knowledge increasing the importance of the individual? And does public data lead to better products?
Honestly, sometimes my best answer is “none of your business”. Its none of Google’s business what my hobbies are. The fact that there’s no “harm” in it is irrelevant. I want to be left alone, I should be able to without an advanced knowledge of cyber security.
Privacy brings security under totalitarian regimes or in countries that shift in that direction. They might say if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, but there are unjust conditions under which you have to hide things, like that you belong to minority that is targeted by the authorities. Like the nazis did in the third reich, where privacy was reduced during their takeover. Or that you belong to a party that is suddenly framed as evil and enemies of the nation. Or if you have connections to “traitors” or other “scum”.
As a gay man, there are some frightening trends even right here in the US. The more I see and experience, the more thankful I am for the people who value and preserve our privacy, and the more I value it myself. Even if things were 100% safe now, I think it’s a mistake when we take that for granted.
Society can go sideways quite rapidly.
Yeah, it’s insane we still have to deal with this in 2023… and it’s even worse for trans people, “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” and all that.
There are people who aren’t financially independent yet that are facing the very real possibility of getting disowned by their family and thrown out on the street if they come out as anything but cishet. It sucks, but keeping this kind of information private can be lifesaving.
This was a reply I posted on “What should I say when someone says they “don’t have anything to hide”?” In ask Lemmy a week ago, and I think it’s still applicable here
They don’t choose what they need to hide, if their government outlaws woodworking tomorrow, then any carpenters today go from “having nothing to hide” to “I need to hide my entire career and hobby” overnight and in their sleep.
And then the government threatens Facebook to hand over messages from any user suspected of woodworking, and then they get persecuted and arrested
The government threatens Google to hand over all browser history from suspected woodworkers, Apple for all iCloud photos from suspected woodworkers, Amazon for all woodworking related purchases
It goes on
If the carpenter cared about privacy from the start, then the government just wouldn’t be able to find them and arrest them for simply woodworking
But the carpenter didn’t care about privacy, they “had nothing to hide” yesterday, so when that law goes into effect tomorrow the government will have a really easy time finding them
Then replace woodworking with abortion and you no longer need to imagine it happening, you can watch it live in 4K.
The more there is known about you, the easier you are to be manipulated.
If you read George Orwell‘s 1984 or watch the Cambridge Analytica documentary on Netflix you get an idea.
Ask that mother and daughter that got arrested for an abortion after facebook ratted them out.
That’s why privacy matters. Not because something bad can happen now, but because that information can be weaponized down the road
Well…
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Target once used small amounts of shopping data to accurately predict women were pregnant before they themselves knew.
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A Nebraska PD got data from Facebook to prove a woman had an abortion recently and prosecuted her.
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you don’t know what will become illegal
So, even small amounts of data can predict lots of things about your life. The government has a track record of using that data to prosecute you. And you cannot trust the Government will always align with your morals (assuming it even does right now).
And that doesn’t even consider other entities & organizations in the world.
What if an insurance company wants uses public data about you to deny you coverage? What if someone is searching for people in the area with ideal houses to rob and you’re on vacation? What if they use a deepfake of a loved one to scam you? Steal your identity and ruin your credit? What if they make and sell deepfake porn made of you or a loved one? What if they create meticulously engineered political psyop campaigns hand-tailored to exploit your psychology? What if this list of “what ifs” could go on nearly forever, and some “what ifs” aren’t even things we’re capable of knowing about?
Because that last one is absolutely true, all the rest of those are true for someone, and at least one of them is probably true for you already.
Ok, but what if you don’t care?..well someone else in your life does. And even if they have impeccable data privacy habits, if enough of their friends and family don’t, then they’re just a single missing puzzle piece, and everyone can still see their shape.
Not to mention, you contribute to a pool of data that’s used to perform these kinds of analyses on society at large, meaning you contribute in some part to each and every instance of malicious data use towards anyone, anywhere.
Is that a good enough reason to care?
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