It never actually fails, every time there’s an article or mention of new surveillance tools being used by law enforcement or some other security group, complaints about the privacy violation are met with the “I have nothing to hide” opposition.
The inference here, of course, is that anyone desiring privacy has something to hide, and should be silenced, which is dumb.
Actually, I think the “I have nothing to hide” brigade is full of naive fools. The reason I think that, is because the idea that the government, or security groups can go right ahead and capture all the information they want, since I haven’t done anything wrong, is dependent on all of that information about us never being lost or misused.
Sure, that never happens.
No one with access to that much information has ever misused it to stalk people. (Not)
No one who shouldn’t have access to that information has ever hacked in and made it available. (Not)
No one has ever kept data for years that they weren’t supposed to. (Not)
No one has ever had a health condition revealed to their employers or others due to misuse of private information (Not)
The truth is, if there is a place where that much information can be gathered about any individual, eventually someone is going to misuse it, and eventually someone is also going to alter it to their own benefit.
If someone alters your location data to make it look like you were at the scene of a crime, who’s going to believe you weren’t?
So, again, I ask. Even if you think you have nothing to hide, there’s a risk to anyone having and controlling that much data about us. Why shouldn’t we question collecting it in the first place?
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