Surveillance Is The New Normal
Understanding the shifting baselines of privacy.
Privacy, as we once understood it, has dramatically eroded over the past few decades. What was once considered invasive is now accepted as normal. This shift has happened quietly, with each generation growing up with lower expectations of privacy, often unaware of just how much has been lost.
The New Normal of Corporate Surveillance
We’ve reached a point where big companies can monitor nearly every aspect of our digital lives, and many of us no longer find it alarming. Vague Terms of Service agreements make it easier for companies to justify collecting, analyzing, and even selling our personal data. The truth is, most of us don't fully understand the extent of the surveillance we’re under—or that we've technically "consented" to it.
This normalization of corporate surveillance is troubling. We’ve grown so accustomed to being watched that we no longer even consider it "spying." Instead, we assume this is just how things work in the digital age, and it’s no longer seen as an invasion of privacy.
The Loss of Financial Privacy
Another clear example of this erosion is in our financial transactions. Decades ago, people were outraged when the government started tracking large financial transactions under the Bank Secrecy Act. Fast forward to today, and everything from small Venmo payments to everyday credit card transactions is tracked, monitored, and sold. The idea of financial privacy feels like a relic of the past.
Our relationship with financial privacy has fundamentally changed. What was once seen as a constitutional right and personal freedom is now simply part of the trade-off for using digital payments. Our baseline for what’s acceptable has shifted.
Shifting Baselines and Our Disappearing Privacy
The concept of shifting baselines—first coined in relation to declining fish populations and applied to privacy in a fantastic essay by Bruce Schneier and Barath Raghavan—helps explain how privacy has disappeared right under our noses. Each generation’s “normal” becomes the baseline for what’s acceptable. Every privacy violation seems small and incremental, but over decades, the total erosion is immense.
What we once considered invasive or even creepy has gradually been normalized. Companies track everything we do—whether it's online shopping, web browsing, or even our location—while burying their intentions in legal fine print. Over time, we've come to accept this surveillance as just part of using modern technology.
Why Should We Care?
The danger of these shifting baselines is that they blind us to how much our rights have been eroded. The more we accept intrusions into our privacy as a normal part of life, the harder it becomes to push back against it. We don’t want to wait until it’s too late to realize how much of our privacy has already disappeared.
The question we need to ask ourselves is: Is this the future we want?
If we continue down this path, privacy may become a privilege only available to opaque institutions and regimes that know everything about us, while we know nothing about them.
Let’s Reclaim The Narrative!
Recently, I put out a call on X, announcing that I am a privacy accelerationist.
Why I'm a priv/acc:
Because privacy is the foundation of freedom & dignity.
Because the world is skyrocketing towards constant surveillance.
Because we can't afford to wait. We must accelerate privacy innovation & normalize adoption now.
The clock is ticking. This is about safeguarding the future of freedom.
I said I’d follow anyone who added "priv/acc" to their bio, signaling that they support the idea of privacy accelerationism. My goal is to connect with others who share these values and become part of a cohesive movement advocating for change. It’s so important that people know there’s a larger community out there fighting to protect privacy—so they don’t feel strange or shamed when someone asks, "What do you have to hide?" We want to show people that if they push back against the status quo, that there are so many more of us standing right there in solidarity with them.
Sometimes, fighting as an individual against a powerful force can feel daunting. But knowing there are others fighting for the same cause can be incredibly empowering.
Hundreds of people responded to the call and added the priv/acc signal to their accounts. I was floored by the surge of interest from people who want to push back and demand change. I feel more optimistic than ever that we’re entering a new era—one where we demand better from companies and governments that haven’t been respecting us.
We need to show the world that there are many of us, and we won’t settle for complacency.
So thank you for being part of this, and let's go make some noise!
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Yours in privacy,
Naomi
Great post, I like it so much, reference to it on my post too, https://www.vinthewrench.com/p/leaving-the-apple-ecosystem-part-920