Give us back our private lives

[Ellipse]

When I discuss with friends about privacy concerns, very often they retort me the famous 'I've nothing to hide so nothing to fear'. There's a well formulated answer in the article:

The problem is that everybody has something to hide: some degree of privacy is necessary for human dignity.

and, if the word dignity do not seem to light up something in the eye of your interlocutor, a more concrete argument:

In the 18 months since computer disks containing the records of all 25 million families receiving child benefit were lost by officials, at least a dozen other departments have admitted to losing vital personal data on millions of people. Should the data fall into the hands of criminals, the potential for damage is immense.

source: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/182879-Give-us-back-our-private-lives

 

[vinny]

well, to this 'I've nothing to hide so nothing to fear', there's another answer too.

the very people and organisations who want to store our data are controlled by violent thugs and criminals, in the form of government and corporate bodies.

"I've got nothing to hide, so nothing to fear" could only possibly be a valid argument if the entire structure of society / authority / government / police / justice system (down to the very last man) was:

- completely altruistic and had only your best interests at heart
- completely uncorrupt, 100% uncompromised by internal conflicts of interest
- manned entirely by people who are utterly incorruptible, 100% impervious to the effects of psychopathy and external manipulation
- completely watertight (in every situation) in its procedures and systems of security
- completely competent to carry out its duties flawlessly in every respect, and on every single occasion
- completely infallible in its system of 'finding justice'
- having total and complete knowledge of reality, the workings of the world, and the people and psychopaths within it.
- there is absolutely no situation in which any information about a person allows another to predate on him/her

which is impossible... (and just doesn't face up to the rather more complex nature of reality) Instead we have a situation where people are forced to relinquish their privacy to predators. How could that ever be a good thing?

or to put it more simply: our private information automatically falls into the hands of criminals as soon as we give it, by nature of the society we live in.

 

[Ellipse]

Yes, but if you say to someone that 'the very people and organisations who want to store our data are controlled by violent thugs and criminals, in the form of government and corporate bodies', great are the chances to be considered in favour of plot theories and be discredited. Finally it's counter-productive.
Steps are need.

 

[vinny]

yup. And therein lies the big problem. Without real knowledge of a situation, it is impossible to come to the right conclusions. Yet, people do not want this knowledge.

Morpheus: "The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."

 

[Breton]

The way I usually state my position to those who say "I have nothing to hide":

Wanting privacy is not about having something to hide but rather to keep personal things personal.

Personal things are that which I have right to keep private so it cannot be MISINTERPRETED by others.

_Breton_

PS: I suppose my answer ties in with "dignity" mentioned already
PS2: Our personal data is open to a lot more than just misinterpretation, of course. It is commonly used and abused in our faulty, predatory system pointed out by Nomad.