Ask HN: Should you care about privacy policies if you have nothing to hide?

6 points by chriszhang 5 years ago | 13 comments

I meet people sometimes that don't care about privacy policy because they think they have nothing to hide. I think there were some stories on HN where someone thought they have nothing to hide but then got into problems because their privacy was misused or their data was misused. Those stories provide lesson that everyone should care about privacy and how their data is used. Cannot find such stories now using search. anyone has links to them? Or any similar story or news articles that can be used to convince that everyone should care about privacy even those people who think they have nothing to hide?

OneFunFellow 5 years ago |

A couple ideas:

If you don't like privacy then you don't need curtains in your house.

Ask them to unlock their phone and hand it to you. Most people will balk.

One thing to think about is that some people don't mind losing their privacy to the government or a corporation but they do care about losing it to real humans that know them. As an example, if a husband is cheating on his wife he doesn't care if the NSA or Big Tech knows about it because they (most likely) won't do anything negative with that information. But he would want to keep that information from people he knows because they may use it against him and will definitely treat him differently by having that knowledge.

Food for thought.

auganov 5 years ago | |

Not uncommon at all to have no curtains. Portion of those that do, might use them for other purposes too (glare, light etc).

People will balk at giving a random friend their device but probably will be perfectly okay handing it over unsecured to a repair shop. People will be unwilling to show many body parts to a friend but likely perfectly fine showing them to a doctor.

That I do not want to show something to you specifically, doesn't mean I'm hiding something from you. If you ask me to give you my browsing history I may or may not. Depends on the reason. If it gets leaked to everybody I will be rather unfazed. But if you call me to tell me you're carefully examining the leak at this very moment, I will still feel weird about it.

Another example. The nearby grocery store knows what food I'm getting every other day. Would I like this information broadcast to friends and family in real time? No, would feel awkward. Will I go crazy if the list for the last 2 years gets leaked in an instant? Not at all.

patatino 5 years ago | |

I find the curtains argument stupid. They look lovely, are sound-absorbing, and I'm not too fond of black windows at night, which mirror everything.

Other than that, good points!

dave_sid 5 years ago | | |

Another alternative to curtains are blinds which also help to block your reflection at night. However they’re not good at absorbing sound so you are probably right to stick with curtains.

giantg2 5 years ago | | |

Without curtains, criminals can scope out your house more easily.

dave_sid 5 years ago | |

Another example is, if you don’t care about privacy then why post letters in envelopes.

This argument falls over when considering that people do actually send holiday postcards not in an envelope. Why are people so relaxed about their holiday data?

giantg2 5 years ago | |

When it comes to government privacy, a good argument can be that you might trust the current people in government, but does the system offer enough protections to protect against future regimes? If you're talking to someone who didnt like Trump, there are probably examples of actions he took that they would consider to be abuses (and people on the other side would probably think the same about some Democeat leaders).

username90 5 years ago |

Twitter has shown us that everyone has something to hide. You have had thoughts and said things that someone will find objectionable. If in the future as a part of the hiring process they got a packet of things you have said in private conversations in order to evaluate your culture fit, would you still feel you have nothing to hide?

Could be a service used by everyone similar to the current private run credit score system, could call it social score. It will be done at some point if laws doesn't make it illegal.

marcodiego 5 years ago |

I use an analogy whenever such an argument is used against me:

It is not about secrecy, it is about privacy. Consider what you do on the bathroom. Whatever you do there is almost never a secret, but it is private. If you close the door of your bathroom when you use it, you know the difference of secrecy and privacy.

Also you have to consider other people like activists who need privacy for many reasons include their own safety. When you ignore privacy right you are giving incentives for companies not to respect it. But people who use this right benefits everybody, even the ones who don't care about privacy.

Ignoring privacy because you don't need it is like saying free speech is not important because you have nothing to say.

It is important even if you don't care about it because the people who use this right will benefit you and everybody else.

sircastor 5 years ago |

One of the most important responsibilities of being privileged (in this case, having nothing to hide) is that your demands for privacy act as a buffer for those who are vulnerable.

I think of it as a sort of herd immunity against overreach. “Something to hide” isn’t implicitly bad, it’s just not something you want shared. Cory Doctorow’s take on this is “everyone knows what you do on the bathroom, they don’t mean you want it visible to everybody”

Sure I don’t have anything to hide, but if we all stand up for privacy, then we’re all protected.

yosefjaved1 5 years ago |

Yes. Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say. That's not my own original thought but here is where I got it from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/comment/crglgh...)

superbcarrot 5 years ago |

People who claim that they have nothing to hide either haven't thought that concept fully through or are psychopaths.

mardiyah 5 years ago |

No. if indded we have nothing to hide.