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The Gradual Erosion of the Right To Privacy
PeteV writes "There is an interesting article on the BBC's website based around research carried out by Dr. Kieron O'Hara of Southampton University. He points out that under British law, an individual's right to privacy is being eroded by the behavior of those who have no qualms about broadcasting every intimate detail of their life online (via social networking sites) because the privacy law is predicated in part upon the concept of a 'reasonable expectation of privacy.' I think his request 'for people to be more aware of the impact on society of what they publish online' is likely to fall on deaf ears, but in effect what he is saying is that the changing habits of the world-wide community of social networkers is likely to have an effect upon English law and how it is interpreted. Given that the significant bulk of social networkers are American, this might mean 'American behavior' could cause changes in the interpretation of English law (which is not to say English people don't also post their intimate details on Facebook)."
Don't worry, there will always be privacy. It will just be solely reserved for corporations.
If this argument was "Well, all my neighbors steal cars, so it's okay if I steal cars too," people would immediately point out how broken that is. But when it's about privacy, suddenly that doesn't apply?
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot?!
The difference here is that we're giving this information to people by choice -- people we know. Our friends, family, and acquaintances. But the only way to do that is to have a central authority to proxy that exchange. The problem is that this central authority abuses its power and -- even worse -- that the government wants its hands in everything as well. It should require a warrant because although a billion billion people might have access to the data, that doesn't mean you gave permission to the next guy.
How f***ing hard is it to understand this? This isn't about privacy -- this is about permissions and how we construct social spaces online. The government's got no right installing bugs in my house without a warrant, so why the hell should it be any different in a digital space than in a physical one?
Answer: Because they're taking advantage of the fact that it can't be seen and nobody understands how it works. It's that simple. No complex intellectual arguments required -- they're doing it because nobody's going to stop them.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I think it's obviously true that if you post online _you_ have no reasonable expectation for privacy concerning what you post online. But even if I post my most lurid secrets online but I intentionally keep other data protected on my machine, I implicitly have a reasonable expectation that that _other_ data is secret.
His line of reasoning reminds me of claiming that a rape victim who is promiscuous in her personal life therefore wasn't "raped" because she "wanted it". She can screw every Tom, Dick, and Harry around the block but if she tells Duane "no" and he rapes her it's still rape in every sense of the word.
A reasonable expectation of privacy doesn't mean certain types of information are deemed to be not worthy of privacy protection because everyone else releases the data, it means that by the situations I put myself in and the actions I take can I expect MY data to be private.
Fuck Myspace. Fuck Facebook. Fuck Twitter. And a special "fuck you" to attention-starved fucks who use any of the above.
this the most reasoned argument I have EVER heard.
If i post all the intimate detail of my life to any social networking site, even if I only share with 'friends', I do not have a legal expectation of privacy. If I do not choose to share those details the fact that others do should have no effect on what is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy.' I do not see how this would hold up in a court of law. We have had exhibitionists (celebrities) in all societies for some time and yet their open lifestyles do not have an effect others rights.
Dumb, fashion-following, uncritical people fuck it all up for everybody else: Welcome to Democracy in a nation where education is all geared up to turn kids into make tomorrows working drones instead of empowering them as self-thinking and self-opinied individuals.
As a foreigner that lives in the UK, I'm not at all surprised that the greatest assault on privacy and freedom in the whole Western world is hapenning in the country of celebrity culture and political spin.
(the only claim to Cultural prowness that modern Britain has is BBC)
Some people around here do to try to turn their kids into true individuals (and they have my respect for paddling against the tide), but the vast unwashed masses just leave their kids' education as persons to the (mosly cheap and superficial) Tele and a state school system which is so in thrall of Political Correctness and Health & Safety Regulations that kids are not allowed to explore and are taught to not critcise anything or anyone).
This is very much in the best interest of the local politicians (whose kids go to private schools) since unthinking and uncritical people are easier to decieve with Smoke and Mirrors games.
The things I post on facebook are things I would show to any stranger. I think of facebook as a PR tool, when I post to it, I imagine showing everybody in the world. I would never use it to share anything "secret". If there were pictures I only wanted certain friends to see, I wouldn't use facebook to share them. How hard can this be?
Sig: I stole this sig.
Your third category, stuff that gets taken from a private place, is protected by the Fourth Amendment in the US: it gives us the right to be free from "unreasonable" search and seizure. Like most of our civil rights, it grew significantly during the Civil Rights era in the middle of the last (20th) century and has had many holes punched in it in the years since. Our Supreme Court was expansionist about such rights in that era in order to stop racist police from abusing power. The problem is most of the expanded civil rights are used the vast majority of the time today to make people go free who are absolutely guilty--the vast majority of arguments about civil liberties are made by drug dealers and criminals, and maybe one in ten thousand are made by honest citizens. These liberties help keep our police forces much more professional than they would otherwise be, but seeing them used to let the guilty go free time and time again makes the Supreme Court slowly carve out exceptions.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I guess, but it has been 17 years since we had a president that did not admit to recreational drug use (and Bush Sr. probably was not a teetotaler).
At least the discomfort of losing the job would be offset with the not working for a hypocrite anymore.
(I'm sure I am a hypocrite, but I don't think it is awesome, and you would have to think it was pretty awesome to fire someone for doing something you also did)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
What I do find interesting is that although I myself have never been a MySpace/Facebook/etc user, I can almost always expect that my likeness will be used there anyway. If a friend takes a photo of me, I can almost be guaranteed that it'll end up on Facebook without my consent, yet at the same time I can't be the luser who stuffs their hand in the camera's lens, or worse, becomes the total social recluse that never comes out of his bedroom. The reason for that is simple: people expect that I am like them, and think it completely acceptable to go posting photos of myself all over the Interwebs.
The erosion of privacy hasn't got anything to do with big government, corporations, or the like - sure, they come in eventually as a result, but ultimately it's people, and more specifically people's attitudes, that are causing the change.
Even if one effectively gives up their privacy by posting something online, what gives the corporations the right to archive it? Yes, that goes for Amazon.com via their Alexa Internet Archive, DejaNews that later got acquired by Google, and any present or future company that somehow archives/caches the data instead of just indexing-only the content.
What that means? Okay, it's online, it gets indexed and a link is provided to it. No company stores it, except for the site it is hosted on. As long as the content owner leaves the content on there, it is okay to link to it. If the content owner takes it down, then hey it's gone.
Alternatively, if a corporation is going to archive content, then they should also be sharing any ad revenues associated with any ads served along with the content, sharing any donations received to help keep the archived content online, etc. You want my content for all eternity? That's an implied contrast you will revenue share for all enternity!
Incorporate yourself, your belongings, etc. as an LLC.
Yes, it would suck that you have to become a one-man(woman) corporation just to get some privacy, but on the plus side, you can enjoy the same rights as the mega-corps, pay lower taxes (what is it, 15% as opposed to the 28% that higher-end individual earners make?), and enjoy the same skewed laws, but this time in your favor.
On the down side, if a larger corp decides to buy your corp, do you become their slave? (I know, I know... but I can't get the thought out of my head for some reason).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
To be fair people shared all sorts of aspects of their life. The only difference now is places like Facebook (not myspace) add some visually appealing consistency rather than people going nuts on some Tripod/GeoCities WYSIWYG editor to create something awful.
Those products are only a by-product of the attention seekers. If we could put an end to this idea that you can be famous just for being famous (big thanks to reality TV for that) then perhaps we'd have less people doing anything for attention.
Don't get me wrong. I do think anyone should be able to voice their opinion and post what they want rather than everything being filtered through corporations but I think people would be more reasonable if there wasn't a slight chance (and really it is only a slight chance) of fame for doing something retarded.
All predicted (or observe?) in Ben Elton's "Blind Faith", of course. "Only perverts do things in private."
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
... I, for one, do not post the intimate details of my life on the Internet.
I think the point is not what you reveal, but what is revealed about you.
If the norm is everyone posts private details about their lives which includes their private interactions with you... Then your reasonable expectation of privacy doesn't include your puking Friday night. Maybe not even what happened with that person on your friend's couch at 3 AM. What becomes public about your life is not only what you report, but what others report about you.
If at some time law (specifically interpretation, but maybe also legislation) starts obviously including the ramifications of our increasingly visible intimate lives, there might be some backlash. I'm having a hard time seeing the particular form such a law or interpretation would take. Maybe something like a precedent that it's okay for employers to use services that link together all references to you from friends' social site posts... ::shrug::
The point is that what is considered "private" is changing because all your friends are posting your and their lives publicly. It's not about what you post. If you want a non-public life, you'll have to spend time only with people who won't post your life.
I might recommend more "me" time. Perhaps alone in the basement. If you want social interaction, online chatting is good. But use a pseudonym. And maybe Tor. And you should probably make up a different identity or two that's hard to link with the real you. Like you're a 15-year-old female elf or something.
Consequences aren't even the problem, it's the consequences of the assumptions people make that are the problem. People like to aggregate and derive "what happened" from that, and suddenly you're defending against a ton of actually baseless accusations that those people don't feel are baseless because they feel they have something substantial to back it up. Then it reaches the point where it doesn't even matter what really happened, it's what the majority believes happened.
Celebrities don't like their lives being invaded and on display on TV. Some may make stupid mistakes, some may just look stupid, but people love a scandal and TV stations love drawing people in with something inexpensive, and it's easy to draw a few lines and come up with a nasty picture. Suddenly everyone could be vulnerable to that type of finger pointing, public shaming, and other rubbish. How much do we need to be traumatized, do we really want to end up as a society that is nothing but a dysfunctional freakshow?
Twinstiq, game news
I think the distinction they are getting at here is somewhat more subtle than the distinction between facebook at peeping toms. No one is arguing that because facebook exists now you can look in people's windows.
A crucial point here is that this is in England, which has an entirely different set of priorities than America, I think some people don't realize it. This is why they call it 'American Behavior.' In America, we tend to favor things like freedom, truth, and independence, whereas in England they tend to favor propriety, respect, and order. I am not trying to say either system is better, but each side has made laws that reflect their ideals.
Thus in England laws are arranged so the truth is no defense against slander, and in America individual freedom is so valued that gun rights are protected, with often deadly results. This has been an arrangement England has been happy with for many years, but with the closer international integration being felt everywhere, England is having to confront the changes in society that come along with that.
Qxe4
You forgot one:
4- stuff others choose to put online/broadcast about you. YOU might have an expectation of privacy, but people are generally not all that concerned about the privacy of others unless it impacts them in some direct way.
The way this impacts our perception of privacy is that suddenly any place where a facebook addict goes becomes a public space... even if it's in some cabin in the middle of nowhere surrounded by "Private Property, No Trespassing" signs. One tweet from that location, and its geolocation is published, along with what this social network dependent is doing there, and possibly what *everyone else* is doing there.
The erosion is that we can no longer expect those we let into our private lives to be intelligent enough to keep information private.
If this argument was "Well, all my neighbors are nudists, so it's okay if we ban clothes," people would immediately point out how broken that is. But when it's about informational privacy, suddenly that doesn't apply?
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot?! ...happy now?
The situation is this: because a large number of people are sharing -- EVERYTHING -- that goes through their brains on public sites, the right to NOT share is dwindling. Because Bob and Charlie are exhibitionist twits, Alice hasn't got a leg to stand on when she wants to clamp down on her personal information -- her position looks increasingly paranoid and reactionary. The government and corporations are QUITE happy to swallow as much of our information as they are offered, and even if nothing else changes, the fact that Alice doesn't share while Bob and Charlie do means that Alice falls under heightened scrutiny (what does she have to hide?).
Privacy, like most rights, exists because a majority of the population agrees that it should exist. When a large number of people suddenly don't get what all the fuss is about, the right becomes threatened, just like any other one could be. Free speech gets challenged when someone decides that the government should step up and stop people from saying nasty things about their social group, religion, or race; it also gets challenged when nobody stands up for the "fringe cases" -- the skinheads, the borderline snuff peddlers, the semi-culpable whistleblowers. Privacy is injured when nobody speaks up about corporations compiling and sharing databases incorporating enormous amounts of very personal information, or about governments mandating the creation of such databases.
Maybe we're ultimately headed for a society of glass houses. Maybe we'll be better off for it. However, I don't feel that our future has been established, nor that the superiority of total transparency has been demonstrated or even justified. I think that the case needs to be explored very carefully in advance, and that encroachments upon our presumed private zone need to be given strict scrutiny.
Except I can claim that almost every single thing you do is counter to public safety. What if you keep the water running when you brush your teeth, your wasting potable drinking water, causing more money to be spent to produce the potable water, thus you are wasting tax payer public safety by forcing that money to be used on water instead of police. I can do this with pretty much any every day task. It is a bad argument, cause its unrealistic. How about we stop trying to save the kids, with unrealistic laws. I agree that public safety is important, but who gets to decide what needs to be curbed for the benefit of everyone else. The majority? I can show many examples where the majority did the "wrong" thing.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
People entertaining themselves with a large social circle of acquaintances aren't any less real than you are. You have no greater intrinsic value despite your derision.
You know, as a general principle, deriding people who are social doesn't really make you a better person. I get the whole gallant loner nerd ethic. Its basis is as false as the idea of the noble poor.
It's these people that do bad things and hide behind privacy while publicly judging others that are the problem
but who's to decide what is "bad"? It ends up being the government and the less privacy individuals have, the more power the government has over them. That's fine so long as the governments laws are ethical and fair (in the eyes of the people) but many would argue that is already not entirely the case. I don't buy this "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" crap the brainwashed masses seem to be spouting.
If you totally remove all privacy then you need to have a small government allowing lots of individual freedom and ideally a reduction in the number of laws. It seems to me the world is moving the opposite way towards governments with more and more power making bigger and bigger numbers of more and more restrictive laws. You end up with an Orwellian society where everyone is a criminal and anyone who is an inconvenience can be made to disappear...
</tinfoilhat>
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