In digital world, there’s no backdoor that only the good guys can access. The possibility of a bad actor accessing the same data that a court order would provide always exists. The true way of being safe against bad actors is being privacy focused as much as possible.

I posted the following somewhere else recently:

“nothing to hide”

Secrecy and privacy are two different things.

Secrecy is hiding something you don’t want anyone to know because it’s “Bad/illegal”.

Privacy is acknowledging that it’s none of ANYONE’S business where you put gas in your car, what route you drive home, what brand of underwear you buy, what kind of music you listen to, your eating habits, etc…

The more you are ok with data being collected, the more data they will try to collect until finally your life isn’t yours anymore.

You don’t close the bathroom door because you’re doing something illegal, you close the bathroom door because it’s none of anyone’s business and you aren’t interested in being watched.

Our personal data is valuable and holds power over us. Unfortunately it’s only been recent decades that this concept REALLY started to sink in and unfortunately big corporations figured it out a little quicker than we did

I’m reminded of a story I heard about a woman in South America (I don’t remember the country.) Her best friend attended a protest one year. She makes a post on Facebook about supporting her best friend. A few years pass, and the government started becoming more and more authoritarian. Finally, she gets a visit from the police, asking about her ties to her best friend, and is threatened with arrest unless she can prove she’s not tied to the protest as well.

I’m probably getting some details wrong, but it’s a thought that stuck with me. She didn’t have anything to hide at the time. But things change, and you can’t always predict what you’ll have wish you had kept private before.

only thing i can think of is ask them really personal questions and then ask if they have something to hide if they dont want to tell you. And then escalate to ask access to their stuff so you can check for yourself if they still dont get the point. And finally point out that companies dont have to even ask, they just get that information without telling you because you agreed to whatever terms they have presented to you.

Any data that anybody collects of you today, they will keep. You might not be doing anything illegal today, but you have no way of knowing what will be declared illegal tomorrow, or by the next government, or the one after that, or if those will honor the principle of not punishing you for past breaches of new laws retroactively.

People in 1930 Germany did not know it would soon be illegal to have a relationship with a jew, or to talk negatively about Hitler. People in the 2024 USA didn’t think they would soon be in danger for filming ICE raids, or tracking their movements in chat groups.

Another argument is that your data that advertisers or the government collect doesn’t necessarily stay with them. Car manufacturers were shown ( article in German ) to have location tracking data of their customers’ vehicles on virtually unprotected servers facing the internet. Researchers were able to deduct from this data alone who worked for e.g. secret services, who likely cheated on their wife, where their kids went to school and so on. What do you think a malicious actor could do with information clearly showing at which times in a week your house is likely to be empty?

Information about you and your family and social contacts and chats can also be used to better scam you by impersonating somebody you know. “Hey dad, it’s X, got a new number. Can you transfer me some money till next week maybe?” Many people fall for that.

There are also other ways in which data can be used against you without anything strictly illegal happening. Do you really want your car insurance to have data about your driving habits?

Do you want your health insurance to know how often you order pizza? Both might get the idea to increase your payments for that in the future.

Would you want possible future employers to know you have a chronic disease that might mean you’ll call in sick more often than others?

Last but not least, have you never said or done anything really embarrassing that you’d just prefer nobody to know?

“arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

“Do you shit with the door open?”

“Why? Are you hiding something?”

“To make sure you’re not hiding anything, I need you to shit with the door open from now on.”

Eventually, they’ll justify their need for privacy. When they do, agree with them.

I’m not worried about what I’m doing, I’m worried about the intentions of those looking

“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”

Cardinal Richelieu

A quick quip is: I dont suppose you own curtains? Humans have a harder time conceptually thinking of privacy like curtains.

First and foremost, I equate privacy with dignity and respect.

But now it’s also a matter of self defense. A woman in Texas does not want to be caught looking up abortion clinics. An immigrant searching for legal council could find themselves visited by ICE. An idle comment that you are anti-fascist could end up labeling you as a domestic terrorist. A tasteless joke you posted as a teenager could cost you a job as an adult.

Fifteen years ago my mother was on Facebook and the algorithm figured out she had breast cancer. She was flooded with quack cures and ads for clinics in Mexico. She didn’t fall for, but if she had, it could have killed her.

It isn’t just about Amazon trying to sell you a toilet seat. The stakes are higher than that.

I call it the bathroom analogy. When you’re dropping a deuce, you’re not doing anything illegal or immoral, indeed you’re not doing anything anyone else isn’t also doing, but I’d wager you probably don’t want people watching you do it.

being monitored (even if you are not aware of it) changes your behaviour via the ‘big brother’ effect.

Your behaviour is most of what makes you an individual, and is the means through which people express their autonomy and social existence.

putting these things together gives you the result that you cannot fully be ‘yourself’ while you are being watched. At best you are performing what you’d like ‘yourself’ to be for an expected audience.

Self actualisation, or the process of developing and becoming ‘yourself’ is therefore disrupted meaning that you can never be or know yourself while you lack real privacy.

Another (more dramatic) way to say it would be you cannot be fully human without also enjoying a default privacy

Great, can you give me your phone and unlock it so I can scroll through it?

You have nothing to hide right? Also if you could keep the door to the bathroom open that’d be great!

Usually gets the point across very quickly

Privacy and security are two different things.