Firstly, I’m not against privacy or anything, just ignorant. I do try to stay pretty private despite that.
I wanted to know what type of info (Corporations? Governments? Websites??) Typically get from you and how they use it and how that affects me.
In addition to everythong everyone has said, one major thing that people often don’t think about privacy is how it relates to enshittification.
Modern software services try to optimize everything to make as much money as possible. Everything is a/b tested, and whatever increases some arbitrary metric is what gets released.
They do this by tracking a ton of metrics about how you interact with everything. I know where I work we collect data about every time you click on anything, how long you hover over buttons, etc.
10 years ago by having your full name and face your whole data would be in risk of exposure like all social media apps your online footprint etc, etc and in the wrong hands hackers for example can do god knows what with it like sell your data to your enemies track it against you to steal your bank informations whatever they can put their hands on…
Nowadays they only need your face, almost everyone in the world has had uploaded a picture of them online somewhere and that’s enough to dox you and again your online digital footprint and again for whatever reason they want to possibly hurt you,
However having digital privacy forbids this data from leaking to the wrong hands and makes you a little more secure, just knowing little bit about your private life is sometimes enough to track you and open a weakness to take advantage of. this age isn’t for nuclear wars it’s about digital wars and data is power.
For me, there are several very different good reasons. I write Them down in order they come to my mind not from imoortant to less important or vice versa.
- i dont want to be judged before met in Person
What do companies do before they hire you, banks that you ask for money etc. They look you up in the net before they meet you. Think they know you. No Chance to present yourself as you want it. Yes you can polish your social media but not all the hidden profiles they made of you…
- stalking
i once studied in a different country. Had 3 dates with someone i only realized then is weird and kindly ended dating. Then this person was stalking me for a year and only stopped thx to the police intervening after a lot of efford from my side. Luckily the person only had my email and phone contact and new which city I came from. I was SO glad Ive never been much on social media and stuff… Cause this person would have come to my hometown, waiting in front of my university or whatever - even wrote so. But couldn’t find out. Most of my friends back then had their address / favorite bars / university courses favorites places and everythign in the net. I was so scared back then i would have changed my entire life to be sure not to Meet this Person. Luckily i didnt have to cause my life was private. If you think stalking is very rare and you will not be affected look up the numbers. Its horryfying. For woman especially but also men. People dont talk about it but During that time when speaking to friends i suddenly knew 5 other people who had to deal with it already. Also nowadays these apps exist were you can take a picture of someone and search for that face in the Internet… A stranger can do that and find all your photos/ social media etc and be there in your favorite bar every nicht… Scary.
- data is power.
On the " i have nothing to hide" thing. Think of Google maps. They dont care where you go at all but by knowing where everyone goes they can predict traffic, give u alternative routes and theoretically they could also causetrafficb jams… :D while maps is useful they can do the same with any information. they are not interested in your political views but by knowing everyones political views they can predict and also direct them. This isnt theoretical its used in elections already. There was a scandal a few years ago about brexit ithinlk.
- i like to have control about myself
Sometimes i might even agree to share some data for something else but i am forced to it all the time and i have no control whats done with the data to whom its sold next etc. But its still my personal data …
- governments/ laws change
Well i am german, actually from an eastgerman family. If my family teached me anything its that political systems can change very easily. My greatgrandparents, my grandparents, my Parents and i grew up in 4 different political systems, well actually 5 :D. Every system of those had different views of who is good and Bad And it was better they dont know everything about you…
There was a jogging app known as Strava that posted an image on their Twitter that was a heatmap of all the jogging activities of all of their users. Their idea was just to show how popular their app was by showing the entire world lit up. Twitter users were able to locate secret US military bases on that data alone. Turns out nobody jogs in circles in the middle of the desert except GIs.
Recently a group of Harvard students did a demo where they used Meta’s camera glasses and a chain of commercial programs and products to find out people’s names, address, workplaces, and family based only on their facial data.
These are just two examples off the top of my head. Essentially, the more data someone can accumulate, the more info can be analyzed from it. With things like AI tools, that analysis is incredibly fast even with huge datasets.
I feel like being spied on on the Internet is kind of like having a camera in your bathroom.
Sure they promise they’re only going to point it at the sink and just make sure that you’re engaging in proper toothbrushing habits.
Sure.
But they’ll set it at the point where the mirror shows the shower and the toilet and they’ve got smell detectors in there to determine how much food you’ve eaten and how well your digesting it and there’s a sensor in the toilet to check the content of your urine and then if you drink too much they’re going to tell your boss that you’ve been drinking because they detected the alcohol that your body flushed out in your urine when you peed.
And you have no control over who gets to see what’s going on in your bathroom.
It is morally wrong and psychologically oppressing to be spied upon.
And the powers that be are so focused on the benefits it gives them that they do not care about the negatives that affect us.
I’m probably gonna mess this quote up, but I thought it was brilliant:
“Privacy is essential to security, and shitty people feel entitled to take that away from you.”
You can’t be secure in your dealings or operate on equal footing (economically speaking, as others here have pointed out) without a measure of privacy.
