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Understanding Privacy
privacyprof writes "Slashdot readers familiar with Professor Daniel J. Solove's essay, 'I've Got Nothing to Hide and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy,' might be interested in his new book, Understanding Privacy, which develops many of the ideas in that essay. As rapidly changing technology makes information increasingly available, there has been a great struggle to define privacy, with many conceding that the task is virtually impossible. The book argues there are multiple forms of privacy, related to one another by 'family resemblances.' It explains the framework for understanding privacy which was briefly discussed in the 'Nothing to Hide' essay. The book covers the framework in greater depth and explores how it applies to a wide array of privacy issues, such as data mining, surveillance, data security, and consumer privacy. Chapter 1 is available for free download."
Personally, I think the idea that privacy is difficult to comprehend is overblown. Privacy is not at all difficult to define, understand, or to properly address in either the social or political sense.
Privacy is defined by the set of social boundaries dealing with information in any one society that we are expected not to cross. How well you respect privacy is essentially whether you elect to cross those boundaries against those expectations.
Here is my essay on privacy; see if reading it doesn't nail the issue for you in very short order.
There is literally no need to invoke "multiple kinds" or "family resemblances", to mistake the hardening of a boundary (increasing difficulty of access) or the softening of it (as in data becoming easier to get to) for the idea that there actually is one, or to imagine that digital data is somehow qualitatively different than a letter. That's just making a ridiculous mess out of things that weren't all that complicated to begin with.
Further, it isn't that there has been a "great struggle" to define privacy in a practical sense; any reasonably intelligent citizen knows perfectly well what it is, and they know when it has been violated, too. The problem is that the government (in the USA, at least) has found it to its great advantage to ignore privacy at every level it can; and that we are nearly powerless to do anything about it. That's what is causing all the fuss, and deservedly so.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
*Everyone* has something they'd like to keep hidden. Can I watch you have sex with your spouse, or read your bank statement? Can I have your exact height and weight, and maybe get a glance at your mental health records? Do you mind if I videotape your grandfather's funeral? Got any love letters left over from Junior High I can read?
but rather insufficient penalties for violating the privacy of another. If the perceived profit, whether that be money or some other reward, outweighs the perceived loss (i.e. punishment for violating the privacy of another) then privacy will always be violated assuming that it can be. Many of the perceived problems with protecting one's privacy today have been created by or occurred as a consequence of the introduction of new technologies, so it follows then that solutions must also be technological rather than strictly social or legal because of the aforementioned favorable risk/reward quotient for breaching the privacy of another. That is why it is important for people to take the necessary steps to protect their own privacy including use of strong encryption, strong passwords, fake identities, mail drops, etc. I find that it is best to view the entire exercise as an adversarial process where the reward for winning is continued privacy and the cost of losing is a breach of privacy. You are continually seeking to protect your privacy while others are actively seeking to breach it.
after all, who wants privacy if you cannot be safe to enjoy it?
Me. Unfortunately, I was not offered the choice.
Forcing security upon someone who does not ask for it is nothing but paternalism.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm more worried about the steady growth of entitlements. Bread and circuses will snuff even the biggest economy, eventually. What a bipartisan disaster.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
My usual response is "You don't have now. Are you sure you won't have in the future?"
With the changes in laws and the creation of more and more patronizing laws, can you be sure that what you do will not violate the law soon? Worse, is what you are doing today maybe illegal tomorrow, or seen as an indicator for illegal behaviour, and you'll be labeled a criminal because you happen to have similar habits to someone who actually commits a crime?
We have a lot of pseudoscientific "evidence" thrown at us, showing correlation where there is none, used to create laws and, worse, put labels on people who have nothing to do with it. The alleged correspondence between computer games and violence has been discussed a lot lately, can you be sure that you won't be seen as a possible loose cannon because you play certain games?
Oh, you don't play games? Well, maybe you enjoy watching swimsuit contests? Who says they won't create some correlation between people who enjoy watching model shows with people who rape women? Still not worried that your cable company wants to know what you watch, and that government wants, too?
Maybe you're a smoker? Well, are you sure it's still going to be legal tomorrow? And we all know how hard it is to stop smoking, it's almost sure you will try to get your tobacco somewhere, and most likely from that guy you can also get other stuff. Mind if we did a search of your home, just to make sure you don't?
You've been talking on your phone quite a lot lately. And you know, the people you called happened to live next to some guy we arrested yesterday for terrorism (or something else, pick any kind of random crime). Mabye you'd like to explain to us who you called abroad?
That convenience store you shopped at? That funny talking guy running it was arrested because we think he has contacts with some terrorists. Maybe you did more than just shop there, too?
You buy an aweful lot of trans fat grease junkfood, your health insurance decided to up your premium due to your risky behaviour.
Do I have to go on?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
By neglecting national defence, I hope you really mean "Not continuing to invade other countries and kill the citizens of other countries for the benefit of corporate commercial interests"
That would actually be a *good* thing. Nearly everything the US does in the name of "national defence" is actually to the benefit of US based multinational corporations.
Because knowledge is power. Therefore, information about me can be used to gain power over me. Privacy keeps others from having such information.
There are other reasons I guess, but that's the most important one when relating the concept of personal privacy to institutions such as government agencies, corporations, etc. It has nothing to do with shame or morality, it's all about power and control.
Privacy has nothing to do with hiding something. Privacy is a basic need of any
individual (as opposed to communal) human being.
The survivors of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps, when asked following
their liberation about the greatest deprivation or torment they had endured, the almost
universal response identified the lack of privacy. Even living in filth, disease,
and hunger cannot compete with being denied a private existence.
Few of us have experienced, or will experience, a total lack of privacy. But be assured,
the loss of private moments, private property, and a private life can be devastating and
inimical in the extreme. It derives from the core of our human nature. Protect it above
all else.
The founding fathers certainly knew the dangers of such asymmetries. It is sad that their heirs care only about exploiting such asymmetries to satisfy some personal greed.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The problem is that you do not win. They still accept the loss of privacy, they still accept the surveillance and snooping, they still accept being monitored. All you won is a silly, pointless argument.
You won the argument, ok. He has something to hide. But now he thinks you're some professional tinfoil-hat wearing paranoiac who blows stuff way out of proportion. The government/corporations/whoever don't want to put a cam into his toilet.
He doesn't even understand the connection. You argue from a rather esotheric, on-principle point of view. Most people don't care about that, they see only what's currently happening, they don't see the abstract behind it. The government wants cams on the streets, they want a look at your email and webpage, they want to know who you call, corporations (and the feds, in turn, but who cares?) want to know where you shop and what you buy, and so on.
That's usually none of a normal person's concerns. They don't see the long term effects. They only know that the feds won't put a cam into their home, and that they can easily keep you from doing it. Case closed. Nothing to worry about. And if everything fails they'll bluff back and say that the government could put a cam down their potty anytime, but you don't.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are plenty of people who would counter this by saying that this could never happy in my country. They'd be fools, but they'd still say it.
Actually, what makes anything difficult with humans is our being herd animals. We do stuff that we think would please the herd and make us better liked by our peers. Because we're nice and social like that.
Unfortunately, that can be used jujutsu style against us. Enter: groupthink. And there are those who figured out how to do that. It's not new, it's at least ten thousand years old, very probably even more.
Groupthink is a funny thing. Take for example a bunch of farmers, like in the infamous Goering quote, who each independently would rather work their farm than go risk death and crippling in a war where they have nothing to gain. Independently, each would rather _not_ go to war. Put them in a situation where each thinks "OMG, I'd lose face if the others think I'm a coward and unpatriotic" and watch them thump their chests and screaming pro-war slogans. Watch them cheer for the very things they despise secretly. Or conversely shaking a fist and yelling against the very things they desire.
And after a short while, cognitive dissonance kicks in, and they even lie to themselves that they really want those things they hate, and they really hate those things they want.
It's the emperor's new clothes story. Get a bunch of people who think everyone else sees those non-existent clothes, and that their standing would fall dramatically if they don't. Watch them all swear that they can see them clothes. In fact, watch cognitive dissonance kick in, and see them convince even themselves that they _do_ kinda see the clothes.
Where the Grimm Brothers got it wrong, is that that phenomenon is _very_ hard to unravel. In the story, all it takes is one kid shouting "the emperor is naked", for the whole charade to come apart. In reality, that wouldn't do jack squat.
In reality, for you to be brave, someone else must be a coward. To provide the comparison. For you to be smart, someone else must be stupid. For you to be a superior audiophile who hears the difference in downloaded MP3s with an audiophile Ethernet cable, someone else must be inferior enough to not hear it. Etc. The child shouting "the emperor is naked" just provides that other term of the comparison. It makes everyone else in the crowd pat their backs and congratulate each other that they're not like that simpleton kid who can't see the clothes.
It's a funny thing too, in that it's not even the emperor's guards that make it happen. They're at best a catalyst to get it started. Two hundred years later the emperor could be dead and his heirs guillotined long ago, the country could be a democracy, and the "clothes" could be in a museum showing the craftsmanship in the old days. Or maybe as proof of the excesses of nobility in the old days. And people would still come and squint and convince themselves that they _can_ see some fabulous clothes behind the glass. Just because everyone else does.
So what does this have to do with privacy? Well, that's why you have to explain to people exactly what privacy is and that it's not some shameful failing to need your personal space. Because there are plenty of those trying to make it sound like you're some horrible monster and your peers would surely shun you if you want privacy. The ball is already rolling towards turning it into a group-think situation, and there are interested parties pushing the ball in that direction too. You need more than just, well, "privacy is privacy, duh, and of course you need it" to defuse that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.