When it Comes To Privacy, Consent is Immaterial. Corporate and Gov't Surveillance Systems Must Be Stopped Before They Ask For Consent: Richard Stallman (theguardian.com)

In a rare op-ed, Richard Stallman, the president of the Free Software Foundation, says that the surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. He argues that we need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place. From his op-ed: The surveillance imposed on us today far exceeds that of the Soviet Union. For freedom and democracy's sake, we need to eliminate most of it. There are so many ways to use data to hurt people that the only safe database is the one that was never collected. Thus, instead of the EU's approach of mainly regulating how personal data may be used (in its General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR), I propose a law to stop systems from collecting personal data.

The robust way to do that, the way that can't be set aside at the whim of a government, is to require systems to be built so as not to collect data about a person. The basic principle is that a system must be designed not to collect certain data, if its basic function can be carried out without that data. Data about who travels where is particularly sensitive, because it is an ideal basis for repressing any chosen target.

Comments

...wat?

[Digital Avatar]

I may agree that companies have no business collecting 99% of what they collect about me, but the idea that I shouldn't even be able to consent to that when or if I deem it acceptable is tyranny by any other name. My body, my rights :: my privacy, my rights. You're not the only one who should be allowed freedom, King Richard.

Re:...wat?

[pr0nbot]

He should probably have used East Germany rather than the Soviet Union for his comparison. The Stasi not only conducted surveillance but relied on a climate of fear and suspicion in which people informed on one another, either to escape suspicion themselves or to gain some advantage.

Even if you do not consent to your data being collected, as soon as someone else puts it out there (e.g. your photo, phone number, email, twitter handle and date of birth in their contacts list) and consents to it being collected, you're shafted.

Re:...wat?

[jellomizer]

There are too many times I hear people getting frustrated about having put in so much data every time they call in. Ask shouldn't the computer already have this information ready. Or you know where to send the bill, but not to call for follow up information.
For most of the information gathers it is used to benefit us. Not spy on us and determine what evil plot we are doing.
It is perfect? No. Are their a lot of abuses? Yes.

But RMS is an absolutist. There is rarely any grey area in RMS view on things. Either some things right and when it is right it is pure, or it is wrong and evil.
That type of mentality normally will get on watch lists (even before the internet spying on you) because such behaviors can lead to criminal behavior. But this is America and he has freedom of speech, so while his activities may be being watch, he will not get arrested for his views, wither or not I or the government believes in it or not. That is the difference between the USSR and the USA today. There may be more spying, that is because it is easier to get the information. But RMS hasn't mysteriously disappeared yet.

Re:...wat?

[Trailer Trash]

He should probably have used East Germany rather than the Soviet Union for his comparison. The Stasi not only conducted surveillance but relied on a climate of fear and suspicion in which people informed on one another, either to escape suspicion themselves or to gain some advantage.

It's a good point. At the height of it 1/3 of East Germans were Stasi informers.

Re:...wat?

[reboot246]

The default should be (and always should have been) opt-out. Don't collect any information or share any information unless the user/customer chooses to opt-in. That way you wouldn't have to read pages and pages of legal crap to find out how to opt-out.

Perfect quote

[spaceman375]

"the only safe database is the one that was never collected."

Been saying this for years. SO glad someone with a louder voice agrees.

Re: Perfect quote

[Anonymous Coward]

He's right. As someone who has actually lived in the Soviet Union, I can't agree more.

Stallman is on point.

[xpiotr]

And the latest developments with FB and more has proven him right.
Yes, he is a bit extreme, but then again he needs to be.
And I for one am glad he is out there, fighting for us who have given up.

Re:Stallman is on point.

[jma05]

> Yes, he is a bit extreme, but then again he needs to be.

Each time, it is repeatedly shown, that his seemingly extremist ideas simply appear so, only because they are ahead of their time (or rather, most of us are behind time when it comes to understanding current technology). He is far better able to project into the future, what the natural consequences of the current systems are.

"In a rare op-ed, Richard Stallman..."

[JoeyRox]

Perhaps it's rare for him to write an op-ed himself, but Stallman's opinions being transcribed into published words is about as rare as picnics in the summer.

Re:Useless battle

[HornWumpus]

It left the station back when the data was still kept on index cards.

Poison the well, every chance you get.

I just fought this last night...

[MadCow42]

I was buying groceries at Target, and happened to get a case of beer - for which I was fully expecting to have to show ID (I'm >40 years old btw).

When the cashier asked to "see my ID" (emphasize the "SEE"), I held out my license. She physically snatched it from my fingers and before I could even react she turned it over and scanned the barcode on the back into their POS system. That bar code contains all kinds of personal data including my address and biometric info. I did NOT consent to them collecting that info, and yet I have no way to get them to expunge it from their system. Not only am I being tracked in 17 different ways with their marketing and other systems, but they're likely selling that info of to other "partners", and putting it at risk WHEN they eventually have a systems breach.

That type of collection should be illegal. I've contacted their guest relations team about my concern, and have yet to hear back.

Re: I just fought this last night...

[jd]

First, everyone does it so you get to pick which devil you sell your information soul to but you can't pick whether you sell it.

Second, the information is now there and won't go away. It will be in systems for the rest of eternity.

Third, bug data relies on patterns. You don't matter. Get used to that. You have no significance. Your data helps build a bigger picture, but any person's data would do the same. You are disposable. As long as enough people shop there, their system learns exactly the same stuff. Your address, they'll buy off other suppliers anyway.

Unless you plan to live in a cave, where you shop doesn't make any difference. It doesn't matter which head of the hydra you feed. You have an illusion of choice.

That is why you need laws, to create actual choice. Otherwise, your life is just empty rituals.

Re:I just fought this last night...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that would not work, as I am required to verify the ID is real. I worked in the industry (bartender and at a liquor store) and anytime someone would show me an ID in a windowed wallet I was required to have them remove it and hand it to me. Pretty much every "ID Check" instructions mentions those wallet windows and that the ID must be removed.

Easy to get consent

[XXongo]

What he points out is that people click "yes" to usage agreements and terms of service without reading them, and as an example, links to a test where the terms of service explicitly state giving up your first-born child... and people still agreed to them.

People don't read terms of service, they just click yes.

Have you ever read terms of service? The damn things are pages and pages of boring small print.

Re:Easy to get consent

[cascadingstylesheet]

What he points out is that people click "yes" to usage agreements and terms of service without reading them, and as an example, links to a test where the terms of service explicitly state giving up your first-born child... and people still agreed to them.

People don't read terms of service, they just click yes.

Have you ever read terms of service? The damn things are pages and pages of boring small print.

Part of it is we know that contracts don't work that way.

No judge would, obviously, enforce the click through give up firstborn child thing. So even if someone did read it, they click, knowing it's not enforceable.

Re:Easy to get consent

[froggyjojodaddy]

I suppose the counter-argument is that you shouldn't need a degree in law just to be able to post pictures of cute animals.

A key part of reading comprehension is the ability to understand the meaning of a set of words in a specific context and I would venture to say that's where additional protections are needed. Any person capable of reading can read even the most convoluted user agreement but MOST people would read it word by word but not really having the experience, education, or skill to fully understand the implications of a set of words in a specific order.

This may be a real bad analogy, but it's kinda like the protections you get in a Law. Imagine if your Law said "No-one is allowed to force you to work more than 8 hours in a consecutive 24 hour period".
Then you went to work for an employer who made you sign a 50 page employee contract. Somewhere buried in all that text was a roundabout way of the company saying you had to work 12 hours in a consecutive 24 hour period. That stipulation would be immediately null and void (despite your signature) because it's overruled by the Law that said you can't work more than 8 hours.

So .. you may have inadvertently consented to working 12 hour days - or maybe you're genuinely OK with working 12 hour days. But should that ever change in the future, you have the full protection of the law by telling your employer you only want to work 8 hours.

Re:Easy to get consent

[AmiMoJo]

Terms of Service need to be heavily regulated. Ideally there would be a few standard ToS documents and companies would have to pick one, rather than writing their own. Or maybe a kind of build-a-licence system like the Creative Commons one.

Anything they want outside of that, sod off. Products must indicate what licence terms they picked before you buy, e.g. on the box.

Re:Easy to get consent

[Anonymous Coward]

Jokes on them if they think their getting the better end of the deal if the take my first born child in any exchange for service of any kind.

Re:Easy to get consent

[Anonymous Coward]

For an average user it would take 76 days to read the terms of service that they typically agree to in a year.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/reading-the-privacy-policies-you-encounter-in-a-year-would-take-76-work-days/253851/

That's insane, no one will spend that much time reading usage agreements. This isn't about reading comprehension.

Re:Easy to get consent

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

But that is their problem?

When the legalese is so long and cumbersome that it would be literally impossible for any normal person to read, understand and actively give informed consent to it, yes, I think it is their problem.

We've got into this strange situation with online services where there is this fantasy legal environment where everyone is signing up for things with these huge accompanying documents that they have supposedly read and agreed to, when those documents might contain terms that have very little to do with what the person thought they were signing up for.

Just imagine the bricks-and-mortar equivalent of what is supposedly happening with online purchases: you get to the checkout at the store with your groceries, spend a couple of minutes getting everything scanned and bagged up, and just before you tap your contactless card to conveniently pay for it in a few more seconds, you have to stop and spend an hour reading 27 printed pages of legal terms including how you may serve the beef, removing any responsibility from the store if your pack of fresh vegetables is half-rotten behind the packaging you can't see through, promising to pay the store's legal costs if anyone else who was in that day falls and hurts themselves but mentions your name while they're suing the store for damages, giving up your own right to take normal legal actions against the store in favour of some obviously not loaded at all "arbitration" process, and agreeing to let someone from the store visit your house whenever they want to check what's in your fridge and then stand in your lounge offering your whole family replacement products they think might interest you that are available from their carefully selected partners. It's absurd on so many levels.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that, at least in places with sensible legal systems, a lot of the legalese is mostly worthless anyway, because if there is something surprising and unreasonable in a standard form contract like this then it's unlikely to stand up in court anyway.

Re:Easy to get consent

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

People take jobs, signing non-compete clauses, knowing these are unenforceable.

Are you quite sure that non-compete clauses are unenforceable?

I can tell you how it is in healthcare: non-compete clauses are fairly common, and people tend to take them quite seriously. I did read about a case where a non-compete clause was defeated in court (the doctor argued, successfully, that it harmed the public interest by depriving patients of their choice of physician), but it took a significant amount of time and money. That court decision took place in a different state than the one I live in and the precedent would be of limited value to me, if I ever ended up in court.

I also know that lawyers in the US universally refuse to sign non-compete clauses for their own services (it's a bar association rule, or something), again making the argument that it is unfair to the clients. They're obviously not comfortable with the idea that "I'll just sign this, but it doesn't matter because it's unenforceable".

No idea how it works in other fields...

Re:Easy to get consent

[BronsCon]

A right is not 'granted', but is inherent to the person.

While this is correct...

You're thinking of privilege.

... this is not.

We quite often (and quite necessarily) restrict or remove certain rights from a person when they show they can't handle the responsibilities that come with those rights. Let's traverse the Bill of Rights, just for kicks:

We don't have the privilege of free speech, we have the right of free speech; but certain speech is restricted, such as misleading or dishonest advertising.

We don't have the privilege to bear arms, we have the right to bear arms, but ownership of firearms is restricted if you are committed for mental health issues, convicted of a felony (or misdemeanor domestic violence), if someone has a restraining order against you, or any number of other reasons.

We don't have the privilege of not having our homes invaded by military personnel, we have the right to not have our homes invaded by military personnel; the 3rd Amendment does stipulate that laws may allow for this, none the less.

We don't have the privilege of being secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, we have the right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects; yet you can easily lose your house, papers, and effects if they are obtained through illegal means, and you lose your right to be secure in your person when convicted of certain crimes. We call the former "seizure" and the latter "imprisonment".

The 5th through 10th Amendments don't have any real legal loopholes, they just get ignored a lot for no legitimate purpose. I think we're on the same page regarding these. The restriction and removal of the rights enumerated in the first four Amendments, however, do serve a greater public good: to protect the rights and lives of regular, law abiding, citizens.

I'll concede, though, that I should not have used the word "granted" on that context. Please allow me to revise my comment:

Rights cone with responsibilities. If you can't (safely) handle a gun, you should have your right to do so restricted or removed; if you shirk your responsibilities, you should necessarily lose your rights. However, I should not lose my rights if you shirk your responsibilities.

Re:Easy to get consent

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That said, yes, nobody should suffer an abridgement of the rights just because someone else is retarded.

Ideally, no, but such an arrangement is not always practical.

Consider something like traffic laws. I'm an experienced driver, with a good car and statistically a very good safety record. There is no doubt that under various conditions I could break various technical traffic laws, for example exceeding the speed limit or passing a red light, without causing any risk or inconvenience to anyone else. And yet the limits and restrictions apply to me just as they do to everyone else, and consequently the rules are unambiguous. That means a driver who breaks them under less favourable conditions can effectively be penalised, which is beneficial to society (including me). If you consider freedom of movement a right, this is clearly a restriction on my ability to move freely, but with a "greater good" justification.

To give a more obvious example, at the risk of mentioning a bad subject on a forum with many American members, there's a lot of debate about the right to bear arms under the US Constitution, but no-one would seriously suggest that just anyone should be able to buy a WMD, even if they did know perfectly well how to handle it safely. The potential consequences of abuse by one person are too great to trust any one other person with that kind of power.

Re:How about...

[HornWumpus]

You trust them?

The federal government has been caught multiple time keeping gun background check records. Despite the law specifically forbidding it. They have even been caught retaining database records that federal judges explicitly ordered them to delete...next time they are caught with the database, there's those same records again.

Re:Fantasy land

[BlueStrat]

Corporatism IS fascism -- literally corporations in bed with an authoritarian state. The proper response is SOCIALISM, where the government actually acts in the interest of ordinary citizens, not wealthy CEOs.

Yes, look what socialism did for the people of Ukraine during Stalin's reign, or Venezuela today.

No darned corporatism there! Millions starving, sure, economies in ruins and hyper-inflation, yes, but you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, right?

It's Progress(TM)!!

Strat

"Basic funciton" vs "helpful function"

[davidwr]

Stallman sounds like he would be happy in a "bare bones, no personalized customer service" world.

The opposite extreme is full-bore "we know you better than your mother/spouse does" concierge service, which requires knowing your needs, likes, and dislikes pretty intimately.

The real world, where the restaurant waiter that you like best knows when you come in, what table you like, and what food you like but on his day off the backup waiter probably does not unless you've enrolled in the restaurant's customer-rewards program (or it's a classy place where waiters "train" their backups), is in between.

What is the "basic function" of a restaurant is in the eye of the customer, and that will determine what amount of information needs to be collected. Do you, the restaurant patron, want just food, do you want just a decent one-time experience, or do you want an ongoing experience with a particular waiter or maybe the entire staff of a favorite restaurant? If you want more than a decent one-time experience, you will EXPECT the restaurant or its waiters to learn your names and what you like. If you just want a one-off experience or "just food" and you think like Stallman does, you will want the waiter to conveniently forget you ever existed the moment you walk out and the bill payment clears.

Nash Equilibrium

[jd]

Cooperation is cheaper, easier, quicker. And humans are lazy before they are greedy.

Cooperation also yields better results, which is why America and Britain are sliding down every metric and Scandinavia is on the rise.

Stallman uses simple economics. You don't have to agree with him, but you will be uneconomic and unsustainable if you do.

He is not a communist, he is a pragmatic capitalist.

Agree, mostly

[sdinfoserv]

People tend to not give a sh!t about privacy (like freedom) till they lose it. Hence, billions willingly insert records into social media databases about their likes, fears, friends, enemies, purchasing habits, deviate behavior and any other random thought that might cross their brains then have the audacity to feign outrage when that information used against them.
The other part is that this information is the fuel driving most of the economy. Just over the past decade empires have fallen and replacements have risen as fortunes redistribute based on these records. Your not going to displace the current titans without fight.
The true retail battle is over how to acquire more - car companies are going to start collecting your driving / gps data for monetization, in home IoT devices are being pushed by every company imaginable, people flock to sites to get their DNA tested as they waive their rights to their own DNA forever... so go ahead and buy that Alexa, google home, Xfinity One, or any myriad of spyware toys companies are tying to insert into your personal lives. ...

Key point missing....

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a key point missing that isn't brought up much. The data is not there to help you and will be absent when it's your turn to actually need it. I can easily prove this....

State tracking car insurance. That data will get me pulled over if I let my insurance lapse, but if I get pulled over for other reasons and lack my insurance card, that data is unavailable to exonerate me. I'll still have to physically go to court/police station to show that card. They won't just "look at the data" showing I have insurance.

Same for medical records. It will be used to raise my insurance rates but I will have to actually pay to get my own records and even then it won't be the electronic copy that's legible, instead it will be the doctors scribbling that is incomprehensible. I even had a doctor tell me I wasn't paying him to read his handwriting to me when dealing with carpal tunnel years ago.

If I lose my cell phone, despite it containing enough tracking to immediately find it, the phone company will not give me that data. But if I rob/hurt/steal/kidnap/etc with that phone on me, that data will ID me and I will be in trouble. When I need it and can prove I am the account holder this data unavailable to help me recover my lost phone.

Stop thinking the data is okay because it helps us and makes our lives easier. That is not the case!