{"id":25770,"date":"2020-10-01T18:31:10","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T17:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inre.me\/?p=25770"},"modified":"2020-10-13T18:21:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T17:21:00","slug":"why-privacy-is-the-most-important-concept-of-our-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inre.me\/why-privacy-is-the-most-important-concept-of-our-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Privacy Is the Most Important Concept of Our Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In case you are coming from Hacker News and are confused about some comments, be aware that I updated the essay to deal with some criticism<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The title is not hyperbole. I do think that privacy is the most important concept of our time. Let me tell you why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, internet has made sharing information easier and complexity has made information more dangerous. We need to evolve our understanding of rules and norms to deal with this new situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I have always believed in the importance of privacy, but I felt that common definitions (e.g., the right to be left alone<\/em>) were lacking. In fact, I think that the whole conceptualization of privacy as simply a right of an individual and regarding private information as partial and limiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Think about this: the government can send policemen to surveil you and everybody they deem interesting. However, it can do this only for few people. This limitation is due to physical constraints, not legal ones<\/strong>. There is a limited number of policemen and you would notice if there was a police car in front of each house of the neighborhood. This is not true for internet communications: the government can spy everyone at once and you would never notice<\/strong>. As many whistleblowers have revealed, this is what the NSA has actually done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, the changes in society affect privacy directly but may also affect all our rights indirectly. Privacy is the fundamental principle that must respond to these changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You might say that then, maybe, I am not really thinking about privacy, but rather something else. That might be true, so let’s not talk about privacy, instead let’s talk about Ur-Privacy<\/a>, the principles of any possible concept of privacy. Take this essay as the opinion of a random guy that cares about the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t A few principles for privacy<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy is not just something we need to separate our private live from our public live. It is necessary to separate our private live, the communities we belong to and the public sphere from each other.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy is about boundaries.<\/strong> It is not about hiding something but allowing to create a space with rules decided by its members. I like to compare it to borders. Some people say that borders are a restriction, something that limit freedom of movement and we do not need in the contemporary world. As if they were arbitrary obstacles put there by petty people. It almost makes sense if you do not think about them, after all you are actually stopped at a border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, that is not true, that is not why they exist. Borders delimit the area that a certain state control, an area where a specific set of rules and laws applies. There was a time before borders, in fact most of human history did not have clear borders. It was not a time of freedom, but anarchy, where bands of barbarians could roam into your home and pillage everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this context is also important to remember that before the Peace of Westphalia<\/a> modern European states were plagued by continual wars. The short version is that this was due to the combination of two facts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, the issue was not that leaders wanted to make war all the time, they needed to do so<\/strong> because the legitimacy of their power depended, at least on some level, to what the rest of the European world was doing. If you claim to be a divine king there better be agreement on what the divine is, otherwise a guy that picks a different religion can also pick a different king. And, according to some, he could be a legitimate king. To change the situation this peace treaty established the principle that the internal affairs of a state are the exclusive interest of said state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The connection with privacy is this: without clear rules on what is private and what is public, nobody knows which stuff belongs to whom. This means chaos and often that all belong to the strongest. Somebody might say that what you do in private, it is not private at all but political. It concerns the society at large. Therefore, it must be regulated according to their rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy does not imply hiding the truth.<\/strong> Meaning depends on context, therefore everything should be considered within its context.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy is about control<\/strong>. Without privacy we cannot decide for ourselves how to live our lives. If there is no privacy, all become public. Whoever has more power and an interest can affect your life according to their own rules. Then, I have to care about what other people think, otherwise they will control how I can behave. As before the peace of Westphalia, the issue is not that other people are bad, they have to do it<\/em>. When everything is subject to public scrutiny, you either control the rules and judge others or you are judged and controlled by others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Think about this way: we say a lot of things in our private lives that are not meant to be taken literally. In private we say something and then we add: you know what I mean<\/em>. And that is actually true. We can do that because the people we talk to in private know us; they understand the context in which our words must be understood. And even more importantly: they care about us; they do not want to intentionally misunderstand us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was a child I would sometimes say and think that I wanted to kill my brother. I did not mean it literally and everybody knew it. If I said the same thing now, in public, to somebody that does not know me, the phrase would be different. It would be a threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why is that? They are the exact same words. You know why, of course. I am different and the context is different. The real meaning of something, whether an action or a word, is not absolute, in most cases it is relative. When we speak in public, we share a different context, therefore our words have a different meaning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So even if I say something as a hyperbole, or something that can be construed as an implicit threat (e.g., they must be stopped at all costs<\/em>!), they might protest. You might say that they are overreacting, that it was just a joke, but how can they be sure of it? They do not know me.<\/strong> It is true that acts of violence are prepared by violent words. Even if you are unsure if something is really violent, you have to take a stand. You have to make clear that any attack against you is not permissible. Otherwise, somebody, maybe a crazy guy, might think that it is permissible and the right course of action<\/a>. Somebody might feel legitimated to take your land and kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy is not just needed to protect us from the government or exceptional situations. It is about understanding the rules that applies to every aspect of our life so that they can be fair for everybody.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy is about everyday life<\/strong>. The issue is not simply that something we say can be considered a threat. When you are communicating with someone you need to be able to understand them. Communication requires a shared understanding at some level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The easiest example to understand this are work discussions. When we talk with people that work in our field, we can communicate more easily the impact of a choice. This goes beyond the ability to use technical terminology: we know which are the main things to care about. The same discussion with our bosses would be different. Even making them understand the basic strengths and weaknesses is more challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now imagine being forced to communicate everything you do in the most general terms, to people that do not care about you, because everybody can see you<\/strong>. So, they can use any piece of information for their own needs. This could mean a policeman investigating you. It could also mean a company making you pay more for a pair sneakers, because they know how much disposable income you have and that you really love sneakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We need privacy to be aware of what is happening to us. It is too much to demand we know how other people interpret what we say. However, it is not excessive to ask that we can control what is shared about us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defending privacy would require all-around changes<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy is the most important concept of our time, because it influences everything else. Without privacy we do not know what rules applies. Our lives will be judged according to the rules of somebody else<\/strong> in ways we cannot even imagine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We cannot discuss all of the possible implications of privacy on other rights, so let’s see just the example of freedom of speech<\/em>. Of course, sometimes you can also be judged for who you are: your religion or lack thereof, political opinion or sexual orientation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Give me six lines written by the most honest man, and there I will find something to hang him.<\/p>Cardinal Richelieu<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n People lost jobs and had their lives ruined, because the mob judged something they said in private in a different way from what they expected. And they paid a price. You might say: that was fair. We might judge ourselves by our intentions, but others by their actions, which are real and objective.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat is Ur-Privacy<\/h2>
Privacy Affects Everything<\/h2>