The Importance of Privacy
By: Martin Barakov
Tags: Privacy, Digital, Anonymous, Human Rights, Politics

The Importance of Privacy

Your privacy is an issue you should at the very least care about, especially in the digital age.

Privacy is essential for countless different reasons, but before we analyze why it is fundamentally important, we need to understand what it is.

So, what is privacy? Well, to fully answer this broad question in the digital age of technology, we’d have to go back to historical occurrences, philosophical notions and ideas, and more.

So instead, let’s go to the basics.

Privacy is many things, including the following and more:

The right to choose what you let into your life, and subsequently, what you do not allow into your life The right to be isolated when you feel the need to for a given reason or purpose The right to secrecy in your day to day tasks and obligations

Now, if you were to analyze what each of the phrases mentioned above had in common outside of defining privacy, it is the concept that privacy is a fundamental right. You have a right to privacy and the utmost seclusion from any foreign individual or group you might not want to engage with.

If we were to look at the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), privacy is outlined perfectly as a right in Article 12:

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”

The most important thing to understand is that your privacy is your privacy alone and should not be subjected to the wishes of state or corporate structures such as the National Security Agency (NSA), Facebook, and others.

Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash

But why should you care? Privacy is a fundamental right, but ultimately it is indeed your decision to act on it and take measures to preserve that right. But you should care because, as mentioned earlier, it allows you to decide your own fate in regards to your private information. If we’re being honest, you don’t want anyone to have access to your photos from last weekend, or your text messages to your best friend where you were a bit too heated, do you? It’s why you probably lock your phone in the first place anyways.

But then some people have arguments lined up against the idea of privacy, or at least the safety and security of the lack thereof. Here are two commonly used examples:

“I’ve got nothing to hide, why should I care?” “Stop being so paranoid, no one is watching.”

Nothing to Hide?

Let’s break down where each point tends to come across from. Starting with the argument of ‘having nothing to hide’, there tends to be a sentiment regarding how the erosion of privacy is okay, purely because you aren’t doing anything wrong.

A common rebuttal to this argument that was made popular by Jacob Appelbaum is that if you genuinely have nothing to hide, you would pull down your pants and unlock your phone. While rather comical, it does get the point across quite well. Even in the off chance that the defender of the ‘nothing to hide’ argument persists, it is extremely likely that as you are sifting through their messages, saved photos, and more, the individual involved will probably remember something they did, something they want to keep secret, and subsequently remove your access.

Photo by Benjaminrobyn Jespersen on Unsplash

Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked classified documents regarding global mass surveillance propped up by the NSA and allied signals intelligence institutions, also explained a somewhat quirky response to the idea of having nothing to hide:

The Paranoia Argument?

If you are an advocate of privacy legislation, online rights, digital privacy, or any other term that is related to the three just mentioned, you have likely heard someone, be it a close friend, a family member, or a random individual on the internet, call you paranoid.

Paranoia as a term tends to be defined usually as irrational suspicion towards someone or a group of people. After the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, many governments proceeded with the passing of various acts and bills that would help combat the newfound threat of terrorism. Arguably the most commonly pointed to example is the USA PATRIOT Act, passed under two months after the attacks occurred.

People who were skeptical towards the implementation of new ‘security measures’ were often labelled as paranoid or conspiracy theorists because the idea that their governments would spy on them en masse was entirely out of this world. When the idea that the country is ‘free and democratic’ is consistently instilled in the minds of people, it becomes really easy to believe that your government will not wrong you in any significant way.

Photo by Ibrahim Rifath on Unsplash

With the Snowden revelations of 2013, the paranoia argument has mostly been disproved in regards to the myth that so-called free and democratic countries cannot engage in malicious behaviour at the expense of their own civilian populations. The rise of concern about the privacy issues surrounding tech giants such as Facebook, Google, and others does not help the case of ‘stop being paranoid’ either.

Conclusion:

Privacy can be seen as a mere philosophical concept. However, it is imperative to fight for your right to it if you feel as though there is a sense of state or corporate overreach in regards to your data collection and retention. Your data is yours. Don’t be afraid to stand up for your own personal property, even if it is purely located in the cloud and databases far, far away.

Take measures into your own hands. Start small and move forward in regards to protecting your privacy. Change a password or two here and there, change your security settings, progress towards a new search engine or browser, eventually start utilizing encryption, and continue your life of privacy as best as you see fit. Of course, you do not have to do what I am telling you personally, but never think that the measures you have in place are ‘enough’. Strive to protect your privacy, your data, and your information.

It is never too late to start, and the sooner you do, the quicker you can escape the intrusion of foreign elements that you do not approve of.