“If you’ve got nothing to hide then you’ve nothing to fear” is a common response to those of us who worry about the ever-increasing rise of systematic and universal surveillance and the peel-back of privacy.
It’s snappy and intuitive. But wrong. I prefer one of the following constructions.
From Edward Snowden’s autobiography - at least that’s where I think I read it? It’s certainly something he said:
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.
From Shoshana Zuboff’s pivotal book, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism":
The real psychological truth is this: If you’ve got nothing to hide, you are nothing.
Privacy is a right. The European Convention on Human Rights agrees, as does the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
That said, such legislation is often thought of as targeting the potential for governmental overreach. This may not be the primary concern for the majority of us in a world where it’s primarily capitalists that are capable of and desperate to know what we’re up to (largely so that they can change it). In any case, governments often rely on the technology capitalists for their surveillance work; there’s no clear dividing line.
Some people are only able to thrive - perhaps only stay alive - because they have privacy. This isn’t only theoretical. The LGBTQ community, particularly within countries with outrageously repressive laws and norms around the subject, provides an obvious example.
Via The Verge:
As LGBTQ Egyptians flock to apps like Grindr, Hornet, and Growlr, they face an unprecedented threat from police and blackmailers who use the same apps to find targets. The apps themselves have become both evidence of a crime and a means of resistance.
This might not be the case for more privileged folk for whom little immediate drama might result if our behaviour or implied thoughts were to be revealed. But when de-valuing the right to privacy on the basis that you don’t think that (right now) you have anything to hide from any institution that might wish to surveil you, you also implicitly imperil the right to privacy for other people, for those to whom it may be more acutely important.
Plus rules change. Norms alter. Over in the US, when the Roe vs Wade decision was cruelly overturned some folk who previously may have felt little concern about certain aspects of their data privacy suddenly had a potential new reason to care what happened to the data associated with period tracking apps.
There have been several instances of, for instance, the data associated with people’s web search history or voice assistant usage being used in their legal prosecution. Over here in the UK, the British Crown Prosecution service makes it clear this is a move both intentional and expanding, writing that:
Digital devices like smart doorbells, dashcam footage, car GPS systems and even Amazon Alexas are providing increasingly more evidence in criminal trials, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said in a speech today.
Some will argue that this is a good thing, making it easier to prove criminal behaviour, more likely that victims of crime will see justice. Others will fear that, even so, this may not be the only use your personal data will be put to.