this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
252 points (97.0% liked)

Technology

59473 readers
5174 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
L3s
[email protected]
[email protected]
L4s
enu
252
Why Privacy Matters. Even if you don't have something to hide. (technomagnus.vercel.app)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Fundamental questions arise on whether we truly require privacy. One might question the necessity of privacy, thinking, “Why would someone like me need to hide something? Am I a criminal or a celebrity?”. However, there are genuine reasons why anyone should be entitled to confidentiality, regardless of their status. Privacy is a fundamental right and a matter of personal liberty. As privacy activists assert, it’s about ”liberty versus control”. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Anemia 11 points 1 year ago

It's such a frustrating argument as well. People have many different reasons not to want to share portions of themselves (their data) with others (the state/ISP/etc). I fail to see how "i have nothing to hide" could fight of all the possible reasons to want privacy, if you have nothing to hide then I assume you have no intimate communication with a partner/similar that you wouldn't mind sharing with the world. I just listed some of the main intrinsic and instrumental reasons to want privacy but I imagine that there are many more.

Intrinsic reasons to want privacy (all of these can also to the future, you may not have a stalker today but what about tomorrow?)

  • Fear of current state prosecution
  • Not wanting non intended people to see your private content
  • Fear of stalkers/personal enemies/scammers
  • Fear of attacks by some group
  • Fear of reduction/removal of services by some company or service provider
  • Fear of stigmatisation based on unpopular opinions

Instrumental reasons to want privacy (the future is also applicable to these, next election cycle maybe your government decides to change the company handling all your health related documents)

  • Not trusting state/service provider to keep your data safe
  • Not trusting state/service provider to not sell or otherwise share your data with other parties