Data privacy: how to counter the "I have nothing to hide" argument?
Data privacy: how to counter the "I have nothing to hide" argument?
I know data privacy is important and I know that big corporations like Meta became powerful enough to even manipulate elections using our data.
But, when I talk to people in general, most seem to not worry because they "have nothing to hide", and most are only worried about their passwords, banking apps and not much else.
So, why should people worry about data privacy even if they have "nothing to hide"?
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Cite historical examples of seemingly innocuous, public information falling into the wrong hands.
e.g. The Nazis used demographic records (marriages, births, christenings, etc.) in conquered lands to ID Jews and other "undesirables".
And (if they're American) when they go "well, MY government wouldn't do that!" counter with how Meta has already, numerous times, gotten people arrested for talking about getting abortions on Facebook
The US government used Census Bureau information to identify Japanese-Americans.
E.g. Facebook et al giving up any record of abortion activities.
The couldn't the person just cite all the times that hasn't happened?
I don't think so. Examples of it happening demonstrate that it can happen. OTHO, examples of it not happening does not demonstrate that it cannot happen.
Just because it has a chance to happen doesn't mean it's an inevitability.
Feels like an example of confirmation bias.
I'm not even saying I agree. I think privacy is important. I'm just playing devil's advocate for the OPs question.
It doesn't have to be inevitable in order to serve as an example of what can happen when even seemingly innocuous information falls into the wrong hands. It's happened before, and the consequences were horrifying. It will happen again, particularly if people refuse to learn from the examples of history.
Information is knowledge. Knowledge is power. And power in the wrong hands is dangerous.
That feels like a scapegoat argument. That reduces down to "bad things happen when bad people do bad things."
You can argue against anything when you say that.
"Dentists should be outlawed because some dentists have abused their clients " Isn't a fair argument either.
You have to put the risks into context with upsides. Dentists serve a verifiable and vast positive. Can you equate that to sharing personal information?
IMO at least not generally, as a generic statement.
That is not a fair or accurate characterization of what I have been saying.
How could you explain it better for an argument then?
That historic examples such as the Nazis, the Japanese-American internment, and the Rwanda genocide should guide us when deciding what sorts of large-scale demographic data harvesting we as a society want to allow in the first place. That the "right to privacy" in this case is not about personal privacy but of collective privacy.
Which is why even people who "have nothing to hide" should care about privacy rights.