This is a summary of an article published at https://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/. Written by professor of law at George Washington University, Daniel Solove, in May 15th 2011.
When the government gathers or analyzes personal information, many people say they are not worried. "I`ve got nothing to hide," they declare. This argument pervades discussions about privacy. The security expert Bruce Schneier calls it, "the most common retort against privacy advocates." On the surface, it seems easy to dismiss the "nothing to hide" argument. Everybody probably has something to hide from somebody. As a commenter noted, " If you have nothing to hide, then that means you let me photograph you naked? And I get full rights to that photograph." Some might argue, the privacy interest is minimal, and the security interest in preventing terrorism is much more important. However, it stems from certain faulty assumptions about privacy and its value. Privacy is a plurality of different things that do not share any element but nevertheless bear a resemblance to one another. For example, privacy can be invaded by the disclosure of your secrets. It might also be invaded if you are being watched, even if no secrets are ever revealed. In both cases, there are harms. And there are many other forms of invasion of privacy, such as blackmail and the improper use of your personal data. Your privacy can also be invaded if the government compiles an extensive dossier about you. Regardless of whether we call something a privacy problem, it still remains a problem. We should pay attention to all of the different problems that spark our desire to protect privacy. To describe the problems created by lack of privacy, many use a metaphor based on George Orwell`s 1984. Orwell depicted a harrowing totalitarian society ruled by a government that watches its citizens obsessively. This metaphor, which focuses on the harms of surveillance, such as inhibition and social control, might be apt to describe government monitoring of citizens. Another metaphor captures other problems of lack of privacy. Franz Kafka`s The Trial. This novel centers around a man who is arrested but not informed why. He desperately tries to find out what triggered his arrested. The Trial depicts a bureaucracy with inscrutable purpose that uses information of people to make important decisions about them, yet denies the people the ability to participate in how their information is used. The problems portrayed by the Kafkaesque metaphor are of a different sort than the problems caused by surveillance. They are problems of information processing or analysis of data. They affect the power`s relationships between people and the institutions of the state. They not only frustate the individual by creating a sense of helplessness and powerlessness, but also affect social structure by altering the kind of relationship people have with the institutions that make important decisions about them.
The problem with the 'nothing to hide' argument is the underlying assumption that privacy is about hiding bad things. By accepting this assumption, we concede far too much ground and invite an unproductive discussion about information that people would like to hide. As Bruce Scheneier aptly notes, the 'nothing to hide' argument stems from a faulty "premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong." Surveillance, for example can inhibit such lawful activities as free speech, free association, and other rights essential for democracy. Government information gathering programs are problematic even if no information that people want to hide is uncovered. Franz Kafka`s The Trial, the problem is not inhibited behavior but rather a suffocating powerlessness and vulnerability created by use of personal data and its denial of any knowledge of the process. The harm are error, abuse, and lack of transparency and accountability. It is a structural problem, involving the way people are treated by government institutions. To what extent should government officials have such a significant power over citizens? This issue is not about information people want to hide but about the power of government. A related problem involves secondary use. Secondary use is the exploitation of data obtained for any other unrelated purpose without the consent. How long will data be stored? How will the information be used? Without limits on or accountability for how that information is used, it is hard for people to assess the dangers of the data being in government control. The nothing to hide argument focuses on just one or two particular kinds of privacy problems, the disclosure of personal data or surveillance, while ignoring the others. Those advancing the 'nothing to hide' argument have in mind a particular kind of appalling privacy harm, one in which privacy is violated only when something deeply embarrassing is revealed. Privacy is rarely lost in one fell swoop. It is usually eroded over time, little bits dissolving almost imperceptibly until we finally begin to notice how much is gone. When government starts monitoring phone numbers, many may shrug their shoulders. Then goverment might start monitoring phone calls. The government may then start expand to internet service, and satellite surveillance might be added to help track people movement. Each step may seem incremental, but after a while, the government has large dossiers of everyone`s activities. What if the government leaks the information to the public? And if an identity thief obtains it and uses it to defraud you? When engaged directly, the 'nothing to hide' argument can ensnare, for it forces the debate to focus on its narrow understanding of privacy. But when confronted with the plurality of privacy problems implicated by government data collection and use beyond surveillance and disclosure, this argument, in the end, has nothing to say.
