Why Does Privacy Matter?
I get questions like this all of the time... it is actually concerning to me how much privacy people are willing to give up for the sake of convenience, safety, or out of sheer apathy. I really hope that I can make a difference in your thinking today, as I believe that the continued loss of privacy in the modern world will lead to grave, irreparable consequences that will effect everyone.
You are an individual, with certain inalienable rights endowed in you by your very existence. Have you heard these words before? I would hope so! They are part of the cornerstone of western civilization. Many great philosophers have contributed the the modern day interpretation of rights and freedoms that so many in the west get the privilege of experiencing, and many of their philosophies have contributed to a long list of rights that are believed to be universal goods- points of self determination that must remain intact for the sake of maintaining one's individual right in this life time to seek prosperity and wellness in life, in liberty, in the pursuit of property, and ultimately the pursuit of happiness.
You are special, yes, you. I know, you think I am talking in generics here... no, I literally mean YOU. You are special because you have the incredible limitless potential of a human person. This limitless potential is something that can only be reached through the actualization of destiny, through the means of self determination.
What is self determination?
In short, self determination is the free choice of one's own acts or states without external compulsion
[source].
Do you feel free? Do you feel compelled in your actions? Sometimes it is difficult to be able to tell. There are so many advertisements in our daily lives that our brains are almost constantly dealing with the difficult process it takes to sift through input and determine what is of a manipulative nature and what is not. Many companies have worked tirelessly for decades in the pursuit of new methods in cognitive manipulation that allows them to more specifically and concisely aim advertisements to You, dear reader. No demographic is safe from these practices, no matter who you might be, social manipulation abounds in all corners of the world and only continues to get more perverse in its outreach.
Every day, we are compelled through all sorts of means in our environment to do what we do, say what we say, and act the way that we act. This deterministic behavior does not mean freewill does not exist, but rather it is to stimulate your analysis of anything and everything that you come into contact with on a daily basis and question whether or not it is trying to compel you to buy a certain product, think a certain way, etc. Many of these things are quite innocuous, such as the practice of many businesses utilizing specific colors in their logos, signs, and branding to invoke senses of hunger, trust, safety or fun in those who view them. Most manipulation tactics are so gradual, and so subtle. This particular type of manipulation is something that companies are very good at conducting, and as such very difficult for your to resist.
I know you can do it!
Maintaining constant mental acuity can be exhausting- but it is unfortunately a part of every day life in modernity. To not be vigilant is to fall victim to the will of others. It is really as simple as that. I believe in you! You can break free! Do not give them what they want- be an active participant of life- not just adrift on the sea of endless scrolling. Be the most you can be! Do the most you can do! Determine the motion forward for your life, yourself.
What does this have to do with privacy?
Simple: Let me describe how you fit into all of this. This is where security and privacy bridge into one... and we will start analyzing a quote I hear from people all of the time in response to learning about privacy intrusions from governing bodies:
I am not doing anything wrong, why should I care?
You may feel as though your life is entirely mundane, and that because you are not the leading role of an action movie there is nothing worth collecting and recording on your daily commute. This could not be further from the truth. Remember when we talked about advertisement? That is how all of this started. I can assure you, almost ever social media company, Internet Service Provider, cell phone provider, or Internet company is spying on you. It does not take much to research this, either. You will not have to climb very far down the search results of different search engines or news sites to find validity for this claim. The idea that only criminals or foreign enemies get spied on
is a grand fallacy.
This all started with advertising. The simple wish to captivate your attention and convince you to believe you need to buy a particular product from a particular brand and a particular time. This is still a major concern when using any online service; however, the threat has expanded so far beyond this narrow scope.
A saying that has gained a lot of traction on the web over the last couple years it the perfect way to continue this subject matter: If something is free, then you are the product.
Consider for a moment, why Google, for example, offers so many countless services for free? It is not out of some sense of benevolence- you do not reach their level of market capitalization without unbridled ruthlessness. They want you to use their products, so they can watch what you do. It is really that simple- by recording what you do, where you go, how your use their products, your emails, your conversations, your search habits, and so forth they are able to paint a picture about you- who you are, where you came from, what you are doing in life, what you want to do in life, and other such points. This doesn't seem all that harmful, does it? They just want to sell me something, right? Let us look at the next common response I have heard from people in defense of the existence of mass surveillance:
I have nothing to hide, so its fine for __ to watch what I do.
Remember when I said you were special? Well... the surveillance industry really loves you. Remember back to the first time you ever learned statistics. Alone, a set of numbers was a set of numbers, right? But what happened when you start to analyze it? Suddenly, things like the average, the median, the standard deviation, and maximums and minimums of the set become windows into finding correlation and understanding of a larger picture, right? Well, I hate to say it, but welcome to the data set. What makes these companies, organizations, and agencies so powerful is not spying on you, but rather, collecting information on thousands of people in your area, millions of people in your state, tens of millions of people in your country, and so on. The addition of your data helps to strength prediction models, and improve the accuracy of algorithms used by corporations and government agencies alike.
What Are Prediction Models?
Prediction Modeling is where software engineers and data scientists take information, and utilize statistics to look for patterns and trends in the data. This then allows them to create a computer program that can predict what might happen given a certain set of parameters.
In regards to this top, predictive models are made using data collected on you, such as your shopping habits, your driving habits, where you drive, when you drive there, what shows and movies you watch, who is with you when you watch then. This information can then be used in an prediction model analyze what environmental factors may have been present to make you make such decisions.
An example of this could be something along the lines of Google knowing that you only watch rom-coms when your spouse is out of town and you like to do so with Chinese food. So, being that they know that your spouse went to the airport this morning and is now geo-located to London, you are more likely to want be persuaded by advertisements for P.F. Chang's, and/or an advertisement for a new rom-com streaming on Paramount+.
Predictive models have political application as well, as they can be used to see what factors are more likely to get someone to vote a certain way in an upcoming election. In law-enforcement, predictive models can be used to determine who exhibits signs of threats, or who may known whom in the pursuit of catching a criminal.
While the last example is just as invasive as the first two, it does feel like it is utilizing such technology for the public good. However, looking at the subject matter from a different, deeper perspective, such algorithms have inherent biases present in the way that they make predictions. All programmers have stereotypes in their minds that cause them to see the world in a certain way, and the resulting prediction will be effected by this bias, and as such, can be dangerous upon which to rely.
Ha, yeah they are all 'watching me'... I hope the F.B.I agent assigned to me has fun listening to my boring life.
Modern day mass surveillance is not the intimate wiretapping of days of old. Rather, it is the mass collection of information, being fed into algorithms that scan it for patterns to create more accurate prediction models. Just because you do not have anything to hide, or just because you do not mind being watched, does not mean that other don't, sometimes for very valid reasons. Complacency in regards to individual privacy has lead to an increase in available information collected by data brokers. These data brokers have created a confluence of data ripe for the use in identity and financial scams. This is something anyone should be concerned with, and anyone's complacency towards mass data collection and technological surveillance directly contributes to this problem.
As has been covered throughout the many other paragraphs in this document, you have a right to privacy and it is an important one. When you allow your information to be collected, not only can bad people use it as just mentioned previously, but, through prediction models you have unwittingly contributed to more defined and more specific profiles, of people like yourself. Remember when I said that you were special? That is only half true, as in many ways you are not. Humans have patterns, humans have shared characteristics- the study of sociology is literally to analyze and understand these sorts of patterns. When you allow the easy collection of your information, you make prediction algorithms that much better at understanding what makes you think, what makes you make the decisions that you make, and what makes you act the way that you do.
Your actions should not be allowed to be so easily coerced, and this is exactly what governments, data-brokers, and many corporations want: to be able to control you through subtle means of suggestion. This is not some crack-pot conspiracy: this is about marketing. We are all susceptible to having our thoughts changed through coercion, and the more that these analysis groups know, the better they get at controlling you the individual. Some people have legitimate reasons to hide- it could be from an abusive spouse, an oppressive government- whatever the reason, individuals have a right to their privacy, and when you do not care about yours, if affects so many other indirectly.