Online Privacy and “Nothing to Hide”
The online environment presents countless privacy challenges. Every time we go online, we give away an excessive amount of information about our personal lives, our habits in the online environment, our interests, likes and dislikes. This information is also collected by third parties through third-party cookies placed on our devices.
All the traces we leave on the web can easily be combined to create “a digital copy” of our personalities and used for profit, in other words, our data can be “farmed”, as stated by Aral Balkan in this podcast episode by the Guardian (at 00:04:58 and at 00:22:00). (1) We are constantly followed across the internet, and especially through social media, which could nowadays be defined as “private space that masquerades as public space” (the phrase was coined also by Aral Balkan, at 00:11:49 here). (2)
As a result, some companies out there know us better than we do. Why is this a bad thing? Well, third parties, such as advertisers or government agencies could easily acquire our online profiles. In the case of online advertisers, the results would not be irreversible, so it would somehow be ok. However, there are so many other unwanted places our data could end up. It could be used against us by potential employers, insurance companies or governments. Cambridge Analytica was a very recent example of this, and it should not be taken anything less than a wake-up call, evidencing the dangers of online profiling practices.
The most interesting thing is here: Although some people know about online profiling, they still don’t care. One argument that is brought forward by many people is that they have “nothing to hide”, as explained in this Ted talk by Glenn Greenwald. (3) That argument is not valid though, we have so much to hide. We sometimes tend to think it won’t be a problem because we just don’t know when or if ever we may be in a conflict with authority figures in the future. The dialogue between Edward Snowden (ES) and Chris Anderson (CA) from this Ted talk (4) considers this point:
“CA: Ed, one response to this whole debate is this: Why should we care about all this surveillance, honestly? I mean, look, if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about. What's wrong with that point of view?
ES: Well, so the first thing is, you're giving up your rights. You're saying hey, you know, I don't think I'm going to need them, so I'm just going to trust that, you know, let's get rid of them […]. Your rights matter because you never know when you're going to need them.”
If we want the internet to remain a free space where we can express ourselves without fear of future surveillance, prosecution and other possible negative outcomes, we need to be aware how dangerous online tracking and profiling can be. And more importantly, we should be ready to stand up to it.
References:
(1) Presented by Jordan Erica Webber and produced by Iain Chambers with Max Sanderson, ‘Digital Dystopia: Tech Slavery and the Death of Privacy – Podcast’ <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/audio/2018/jan/12/digital-dystopia-end-of-privacy-tech-podcast> accessed 18 November 2018.
(2) ibid.
(3) Glenn Greenwald, Why Privacy Matters (2014) <https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters> accessed 18 November 2018.
(4) Edward Snowden, Here’s How We Take Back the Internet (2014) <https://www.ted.com/talks/edward_snowden_here_s_how_we_take_back_the_internet> accessed 18 November 2018.
