"Why Should I Care?"

People think that if they have 'nothing to hide' then protecting their privacy isn't important. This couldn't be further from the truth.

Jun 09, 2024

The number one question I get asked when it comes to privacy is, “Why should I care?”

Surveillance and loss of privacy can seem like abstract ideas far removed from our lived experience. On top of that, we constantly hear the benefits of this surveillance touted by those who want it to continue. A common justification used to support pervasive surveillance is, “It helps us catch the bad guys.”

This is a compelling argument. If something seems to have little impact on our day-to-day lives and is just a minor inconvenience but is helpful for high-stakes activities that protect us and keep us safe, it’s easy for most people to dismiss privacy concerns.

Let’s explore this idea.

Surveillance helps us catch bad guys. And the more bad guys we catch, the better off society is, right? The more surveillance we add, the more bad guys we're going to catch. And that's a good thing. Ultimately, maybe we'll even get to a point where we've caught all the bad guys, and wouldn’t that be the ideal society?

Actually, no. The ideal crime rate in a society is not zero.

It’s counterintuitive because it seems obvious that a society with less crime is better than one with more crime. But you have to consider the costs of getting to a zero-crime world.

If, in order to reach zero crime, we need to create an infrastructure of pervasive surveillance into our most intimate activities, where we can no longer do anything in private and can no longer make choices without very powerful centralized entities knowing about it, the cost is too high.

Why? Because it doesn't take a wild imagination to see how this might be abused: Every totalitarian regime in history has controlled its society through surveillance. This is why many societies create checks and balances so that if the wrong person gets into power, they can’t abuse it. It's not meant to be easy for the government to get all of our information. It's meant to be difficult. It's meant to require them to prove they have probable cause and get a warrant that specifies exactly what they’re looking for. The Fourth Amendment exists to create a check on this ultimate power that the government has.

Currently, we have a system of checks and balances that acknowledges it’s going to be harder for law enforcement to catch bad guys and understands that some bad guys are going to fall through the cracks. But this is okay because the cost on society of creating a system of pervasive surveillance where the government is omnipotent is too high. Even if you trust your current government, you don’t know who will get into power tomorrow. Establishing an infrastructure that systematizes surveillance in every area of our lives and makes it impossible to escape that surveillance is a frightening prospect. It would be one of the darkest timelines, so we must avoid centralizing control too much. The worst scenario would be for a powerful entity to accumulate so much power that we hit a tipping point, and the individual no longer has a voice.

Unfortunately, despite this system of checks and balances, the government has circumvented many safeguards in the digital age, creating a system of digital surveillance that is increasingly hard for individuals to escape.

Moreover, corporations collect vast amounts of data about us. Every click, purchase, and location is tracked, creating detailed profiles that can be used for profit, influence, or manipulation. The more these corporations know about us, the more power they have to shape our decisions without our knowledge. This information asymmetry means they know almost everything about us, while we know very little about them.

We need to take a step back and ask whether this is a society we want to live in or if the risk of abuse of power is too high. Should the government have access to every financial transaction we make? To every movement tracked through our smartphones? Should corporations have the ability to monitor our behaviors to influence our choices?

We need to change the conversation as a society and ask, "Is this cost too high?"

Maybe things are okay right now. Maybe you trust the current government not to abuse this power. Maybe you trust the current system of government where you can vote in your preferred person to control this information. Even so, it’s crucial to understand that regimes come and go, but this system of surveillance will persist. You’ve sanctioned and normalized an apparatus that could be used to target any demographic that a future despot or powerful corporation doesn’t like. Our freedoms are not as secure as we might think, and we dramatically jeopardize them further by not fighting to preserve private spaces in our lives that allow us to act without being watched.

So privacy does matter, and we shouldn’t throw it away with flippant statements like, “I have nothing to hide.” Because it’s not just about how we feel today, it’s about the kind of world we’re creating for our future selves and the next generation. We do not want to set up a system that takes away people's right to privacy because privacy is the foundation of a free society.

A recent interview, when asked the question “why should I care?”

Quick Takeaways:

This isn’t about whether you personally have something to hide. It’s about preserving the freedom to protest, dissent, and have alternative points of view.
Regimes come and go, but the surveillance apparatus we set up today will remain.
"Nothing to hide" becomes "Nowhere to hide" for your kids and grandkids. It’s essential we not throw away privacy.