this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Fundamental questions arise on whether we truly require privacy. One might question the necessity of privacy, thinking, “Why would someone like me need to hide something? Am I a criminal or a celebrity?”. However, there are genuine reasons why anyone should be entitled to confidentiality, regardless of their status. Privacy is a fundamental right and a matter of personal liberty. As privacy activists assert, it’s about ”liberty versus control”. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

It's such a frustrating argument as well. People have many different reasons not to want to share portions of themselves (their data) with others (the state/ISP/etc). I fail to see how "i have nothing to hide" could fight of all the possible reasons to want privacy, if you have nothing to hide then I assume you have no intimate communication with a partner/similar that you wouldn't mind sharing with the world. I just listed some of the main intrinsic and instrumental reasons to want privacy but I imagine that there are many more.

Intrinsic reasons to want privacy (all of these can also to the future, you may not have a stalker today but what about tomorrow?)

  • Fear of current state prosecution
  • Not wanting non intended people to see your private content
  • Fear of stalkers/personal enemies/scammers
  • Fear of attacks by some group
  • Fear of reduction/removal of services by some company or service provider
  • Fear of stigmatisation based on unpopular opinions

Instrumental reasons to want privacy (the future is also applicable to these, next election cycle maybe your government decides to change the company handling all your health related documents)

  • Not trusting state/service provider to keep your data safe
  • Not trusting state/service provider to not sell or otherwise share your data with other parties