Just came up with my father again.
He blames me that mother forgot her phone’s and Google password because I recommended against it being a word.
I mentioned encryption, “not necessary unless you’re doing something illegal”.
When mentioning lack of privacy with targeted advertisements, he said that he actually really likes them, because he bought a couple of things he wanted for years.
I don’t really have good arguments.
“Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.”
“Why do you shit with the door closed? What are you doing there, drugs?”
While targeted advertisements may be nice because it’s only showing you things that they think that you’ll want/need/like, the other side of surveillance based advertising is surveillance pricing.
Surveillance pricing analyzes massive troves of your personal information to predict the price you would be willing to pay for an item—and charge you accordingly. Retailers can charge a higher price when it thinks you can afford to spend more—on payday, for example. Or when you need something the most, such as in an emergency.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/fight-surveillance-pricing-we-need-privacy-first
I posted the following somewhere else recently:
“nothing to hide”
Secrecy and privacy are two different things.
Secrecy is hiding something you don’t want anyone to know because it’s “Bad/illegal”.
Privacy is acknowledging that it’s none of ANYONE’S business where you put gas in your car, what route you drive home, what brand of underwear you buy, what kind of music you listen to, your eating habits, etc…
The more you are ok with data being collected, the more data they will try to collect until finally your life isn’t yours anymore.
You don’t close the bathroom door because you’re doing something illegal, you close the bathroom door because it’s none of anyone’s business and you aren’t interested in being watched.
Our personal data is valuable and holds power over us. Unfortunately it’s only been recent decades that this concept REALLY started to sink in and unfortunately big corporations figured it out a little quicker than we did
I’m reminded of a story I heard about a woman in South America (I don’t remember the country.) Her best friend attended a protest one year. She makes a post on Facebook about supporting her best friend. A few years pass, and the government started becoming more and more authoritarian. Finally, she gets a visit from the police, asking about her ties to her best friend, and is threatened with arrest unless she can prove she’s not tied to the protest as well.
I’m probably getting some details wrong, but it’s a thought that stuck with me. She didn’t have anything to hide at the time. But things change, and you can’t always predict what you’ll have wish you had kept private before.
Something you don’t need to hide today may be something you need to hide tomorrow. And there’s no going back.
It is sadly something that some people will never understand. You could question why he does the things he does (closing curtains, using envelopes for letters instead of just using a postcard, having a password at all), but that would likely just make him feel attacked.
He said “illegal” but the word should be “wrong” and YOU don’t get to decide what’s wrong. THEY could decide you’re wrong for having blue eyes or, I don’t know, not liking TACO.
I don’t have anything to hide does not imply that anyone needs to know. Not you, not a neighbor, not the internet, and absolutely not the government.
“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.” -Edward Snowden
Tell him that you’ve installed a keylogger on all of his devices and will be listening in on all of his phone calls and reading everything that he types into all of his devices going forward. See how he reacts.
Yet
In digital world, there’s no backdoor that only the good guys can access. The possibility of a bad actor accessing the same data that a court order would provide always exists. The true way of being safe against bad actors is being privacy focused as much as possible.
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”
Cardinal Richelieu
If I was to answer that type of argument, I would consider those:
- why do you close the door of the bathroom when you use it?
- Can I watch you fuck?
- Show me your last income declaration
- Give me your credit card
- Why do you wear clothing?
- Why do you lock the door of the house?
but I tend to ignore people using the “I have nothing to hide” argument
I just be direct.
The people making this argument have already built an implicit stage in their mind where they’re talking about when authority is trying to investigate you for being “one of the bad ones.”
They’re not “counting” personal privacy in this context like modesty and personal private space.
I just say “Because when the long arc of history swings the other way like it has for thousands of years, do you want your scary, blue-haired antifa boogymen to have the power to investigate you and your personal life and habits?”
If it’s a male conservative, you can have great success with “So if someone says they need to check your hard drive for every image and video you’ve ever looked at, you’re fine with that? I know a guy who can immediately restore every file you’ve ever deleted.”
Sometimes they turn white.
Also: why does your wife, mom, daughter close the bathroom door? Do you watch your mom or daughter fuck?
That persons opinion of privacy would affect other people too.
