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Researchers wrestle with a privacy problem

44 points by cryoshon 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ClintEhrlich 11y ago
This is an interesting dilemma, but it's only one minute example of the very real toll that "privacy" inflicts on society. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the benefits outweigh the costs, but we should talk more openly about the downsides instead of reflexively treating privacy as sacrosanct. The value that we know as "privacy" is far more arbitrary and historically contingent than most of us realize. In societies where resource scarcity forces people to share bedrooms, the acceptable spheres of privacy are radically different from the ones that modern American life inculcates. Are other social boundaries equally flexible? And if so, should we test them? Perhaps so. There is an intrinsic tension between the pursuit of privacy and the hacker ethos that information wants to be free. By definition, privacy is an act of sacrifice: a denial of information to other nodes in the network that forms civilization. Our laws already recognize narrow circumstances in which the costs of that sacrifice outweigh the benefits, such as when there is probable cause to believe that an individual is abusing his or her right to privacy in order to undertake criminal activity. Yet there is a social taboo attached to radical opposition to privacy. For example, an integrated network of ubiquitous surveillance could offer incredible benefits to humanity. Violent crime could be virtually eradicated. People could be held accountable for anti-social behaviors, like littering or cutting off other drivers. Our entire society could operate more efficiently in innumerable ways. But open advocacy of a surveillance state is only a few degrees away from fascism according to our modern political mores. In the example from the story, it's clear that our collective welfare could be increased by analyzing reams of restricted data. Are we willing to intentionally tolerate greater human suffering in order to preserve the amorphous right to privacy? I contend that it's more useful to look at the discrete harms that flow from disclosure of specific information. How could people be harmed? What kinds of safeguards could be put in place to prevent that concrete harm? Those are useful questions, which allow us to make informed choices instead of switching off our brains and discussing "privacy" in the abstract.
- jacobolus 11y ago
  In practice, mass surveillance is a great tool for corruption and control (e.g. blackmail, market manipulation, following ex-lovers, trumping up charges, crafting threats of violence), because the people placed in positions of power have insufficient checks to prevent them from abusing their access for personal benefit or for cementing corporate / government institutional authority. Ubiquitous electronic surveillance makes many types of authoritarian abuse much cheaper, and thus changes the possible scope of control. The same folks who are in favor of unlimited surveillance of the public tend to be opposed to public access to their own back-room decisionmaking process, and in favor of censoring embarrassing information in the name of “security” interests. The “hacker ethos that information wants to be free” is going to run up hard against majoritarian attempts to scapegoat, shame, change, or destroy the different or weird. The life in a small village full of nosy neighbors which you mention was normal in the past was also a life of social conformity and harsh punishment of nonconformists. There’s no a priori reason to believe it would be different in a higher-tech society. “Violent crime could be virtually eradicated”, except in the case of police corruption, which is in many places endemic, and which ubiquitous surveillance makes only more alluring.
  - ClintEhrlich 11y ago
    That's a fair description of the existing political coalitions, but that doesn't mean we have exhausted the range of approaches to these competing interests. From a systems engineering perspective, radical transparency can simultaneously increase government power and accountability. Government privacy (e.g., via state-secrets laws) is just a special case of the problems that occur when we restrict access to data. Right now, we seem trapped in the worst of all worlds. The government engages in mass surveillance, so a rogue actor within the state could exploit the accumulated data for the unlawful purposes that you mentioned. And private corporations have access to almost as much information, with equal opportunities to abuse it but fewer democratic checks on their power. At the same time, we forgo virtually all of the potential societal benefits of data aggregation. If surveillance is justified to prevent terrorism (and I realize that most here would dispute that), why is it not appropriate to use the same data to protect people from risks that claim thousands more lives every year? I don't think that ubiquitous surveillance necessarily makes police corruption more alluring. One of the most recent policy responses to police misconduct has been the nationwide push for body cameras on individual officers, which is itself a form of surveillance. But it's one that obviously increases accountability, so it doesn't have all of the usual stigmas. When placed within a proper governing structure, I see no intrinsic reason that other forms of surveillance could not be enlisted for the same purpose. Wouldn't it be better if we had actual surveillance video of what happened in the Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown cases? Do you believe that constantly being monitored in that fashion would increase police abuses of power? In a broader sense, most of the responses to my comment illustrate the very phenomenon that I'm describing: i.e., an instinctive defense of "privacy" in the abstract instead of a detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of increasing transparency in specific circumstances. I'm not faulting the authors. After all, I have raised this issue in a very broad sense, and so it's only natural that they would reply in the same fashion. But the way that we seem to be talking past one another illustrates how difficult it is to have meaningful discussions about "privacy." If I could make three major points, they would be: 1. The need to acknowledge the futility of restricting access to certain forms of data Most privacy advocates cite benefits that do not correspond with the facts. For example, the government already has the power to tail individuals in public without a warrant and to watch everywhere that they go. Thus, a rogue operative committed to malfeasance has the ability to compromise the privacy of his target. We will never eliminate that power. The question is, given its existence, would there be benefits to a more comprehensive surveillance system? More specifically, would the marginal benefits of broadening the system outweigh the attendant costs? In my opinion, there is a real debate to be had. That is especially true in modern America, where we have essentially delegated unlimited surveillance powers to the government, subject only to legal restrictions on the purposes for which the collected information can be employed. Any actor willing to flout the law in order to pursue coercive goals will be able to summarily defeat the obstacles intended to deny access to the current fruits of state surveillance. If anything, providing the NSA and other members of the intelligence community a monopoly on access to this information seems to increase the risks of misuse, by making it easier for a modern day J. Edgar Hoover to seize power by exploiting the asymmetry between his access to information and that of his foes within the government. I would be more comfortable in a society in which the state transparently employed the data it collects for worthwhile ends instead of pretending that it only uses it for narrow purposes like counter-terrorism. 2. Not all data is created equal When we talk about privacy, people naturally begin framing the debate in Orwellian terms. Isn't it possible for us to approach this topic with more nuance? For example, if we allowed the government to know which books we are reading (something the NSA already knows...), then political activism could be directly compromised, and the benefits would be limited. The same is not true of expanding public surveillance on city streets or highways, to give one example. The problem with "privacy" in the abstract is that it simultaneously encompasses legitimate concerns and ones that cannot withstand scrutiny. Why is access to our medical information so privileged? Do we want to subsidize the livelihood of people with medical problems by artificially eliminating the ability of employers or insurance companies to take into account all of the available information? The answer might well be yes! I certainly benefit from that policy judgment. But I'm not sure that it's the correct one, and I wish that we could enjoy an open debate about whether the gains in aggregate economic efficiency would outweigh the costs to individuals. At minimum, shouldn't we explore alternatives like increasing social welfare payments for medically disadvantaged individuals while simultaneously allowing information about their medical histories to improve the accuracy of public and private decision-making? Maybe that approach wouldn't work, but I have not even heard it discussed. 3. Are we utilitarians or deontologists? One of the major dividing lines in these discussions is an implicit disagreement over the appropriate moral calculus. I default to consequentialism, so in my mind the foreseeable harms from criminality are equivalent to the potential for police abuse. Yet most people process the two in very different ways emotionally. My well-being is threatened much more directly by criminal gangs than it is by an oppressive state. Only a few months ago, I nearly lost my life when I was attacked in an alley by two thugs. Should I be forced to be a martyr for privacy when increased surveillance could have deterred their actions?

44 points by cryoshon 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

This is an interesting dilemma, but it's only one minute example of the very real toll that "privacy" inflicts on society. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the benefits outweigh the costs, but we should talk more openly about the downsides instead of reflexively treating privacy as sacrosanct. The value that we know as "privacy" is far more arbitrary and historically contingent than most of us realize. In societies where resource scarcity forces people to share bedrooms, the acceptable spheres of privacy are radically different from the ones that modern American life inculcates. Are other social boundaries equally flexible? And if so, should we test them? Perhaps so. There is an intrinsic tension between the pursuit of privacy and the hacker ethos that information wants to be free. By definition, privacy is an act of sacrifice: a denial of information to other nodes in the network that forms civilization. Our laws already recognize narrow circumstances in which the costs of that sacrifice outweigh the benefits, such as when there is probable cause to believe that an individual is abusing his or her right to privacy in order to undertake criminal activity. Yet there is a social taboo attached to radical opposition to privacy. For example, an integrated network of ubiquitous surveillance could offer incredible benefits to humanity. Violent crime could be virtually eradicated. People could be held accountable for anti-social behaviors, like littering or cutting off other drivers. Our entire society could operate more efficiently in innumerable ways. But open advocacy of a surveillance state is only a few degrees away from fascism according to our modern political mores. In the example from the story, it's clear that our collective welfare could be increased by analyzing reams of restricted data. Are we willing to intentionally tolerate greater human suffering in order to preserve the amorphous right to privacy? I contend that it's more useful to look at the discrete harms that flow from disclosure of specific information. How could people be harmed? What kinds of safeguards could be put in place to prevent that concrete harm? Those are useful questions, which allow us to make informed choices instead of switching off our brains and discussing "privacy" in the abstract.

jacobolus 11y ago
In practice, mass surveillance is a great tool for corruption and control (e.g. blackmail, market manipulation, following ex-lovers, trumping up charges, crafting threats of violence), because the people placed in positions of power have insufficient checks to prevent them from abusing their access for personal benefit or for cementing corporate / government institutional authority. Ubiquitous electronic surveillance makes many types of authoritarian abuse much cheaper, and thus changes the possible scope of control. The same folks who are in favor of unlimited surveillance of the public tend to be opposed to public access to their own back-room decisionmaking process, and in favor of censoring embarrassing information in the name of “security” interests. The “hacker ethos that information wants to be free” is going to run up hard against majoritarian attempts to scapegoat, shame, change, or destroy the different or weird. The life in a small village full of nosy neighbors which you mention was normal in the past was also a life of social conformity and harsh punishment of nonconformists. There’s no a priori reason to believe it would be different in a higher-tech society. “Violent crime could be virtually eradicated”, except in the case of police corruption, which is in many places endemic, and which ubiquitous surveillance makes only more alluring.
- ClintEhrlich 11y ago
  That's a fair description of the existing political coalitions, but that doesn't mean we have exhausted the range of approaches to these competing interests. From a systems engineering perspective, radical transparency can simultaneously increase government power and accountability. Government privacy (e.g., via state-secrets laws) is just a special case of the problems that occur when we restrict access to data. Right now, we seem trapped in the worst of all worlds. The government engages in mass surveillance, so a rogue actor within the state could exploit the accumulated data for the unlawful purposes that you mentioned. And private corporations have access to almost as much information, with equal opportunities to abuse it but fewer democratic checks on their power. At the same time, we forgo virtually all of the potential societal benefits of data aggregation. If surveillance is justified to prevent terrorism (and I realize that most here would dispute that), why is it not appropriate to use the same data to protect people from risks that claim thousands more lives every year? I don't think that ubiquitous surveillance necessarily makes police corruption more alluring. One of the most recent policy responses to police misconduct has been the nationwide push for body cameras on individual officers, which is itself a form of surveillance. But it's one that obviously increases accountability, so it doesn't have all of the usual stigmas. When placed within a proper governing structure, I see no intrinsic reason that other forms of surveillance could not be enlisted for the same purpose. Wouldn't it be better if we had actual surveillance video of what happened in the Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown cases? Do you believe that constantly being monitored in that fashion would increase police abuses of power? In a broader sense, most of the responses to my comment illustrate the very phenomenon that I'm describing: i.e., an instinctive defense of "privacy" in the abstract instead of a detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of increasing transparency in specific circumstances. I'm not faulting the authors. After all, I have raised this issue in a very broad sense, and so it's only natural that they would reply in the same fashion. But the way that we seem to be talking past one another illustrates how difficult it is to have meaningful discussions about "privacy." If I could make three major points, they would be: 1. The need to acknowledge the futility of restricting access to certain forms of data Most privacy advocates cite benefits that do not correspond with the facts. For example, the government already has the power to tail individuals in public without a warrant and to watch everywhere that they go. Thus, a rogue operative committed to malfeasance has the ability to compromise the privacy of his target. We will never eliminate that power. The question is, given its existence, would there be benefits to a more comprehensive surveillance system? More specifically, would the marginal benefits of broadening the system outweigh the attendant costs? In my opinion, there is a real debate to be had. That is especially true in modern America, where we have essentially delegated unlimited surveillance powers to the government, subject only to legal restrictions on the purposes for which the collected information can be employed. Any actor willing to flout the law in order to pursue coercive goals will be able to summarily defeat the obstacles intended to deny access to the current fruits of state surveillance. If anything, providing the NSA and other members of the intelligence community a monopoly on access to this information seems to increase the risks of misuse, by making it easier for a modern day J. Edgar Hoover to seize power by exploiting the asymmetry between his access to information and that of his foes within the government. I would be more comfortable in a society in which the state transparently employed the data it collects for worthwhile ends instead of pretending that it only uses it for narrow purposes like counter-terrorism. 2. Not all data is created equal When we talk about privacy, people naturally begin framing the debate in Orwellian terms. Isn't it possible for us to approach this topic with more nuance? For example, if we allowed the government to know which books we are reading (something the NSA already knows...), then political activism could be directly compromised, and the benefits would be limited. The same is not true of expanding public surveillance on city streets or highways, to give one example. The problem with "privacy" in the abstract is that it simultaneously encompasses legitimate concerns and ones that cannot withstand scrutiny. Why is access to our medical information so privileged? Do we want to subsidize the livelihood of people with medical problems by artificially eliminating the ability of employers or insurance companies to take into account all of the available information? The answer might well be yes! I certainly benefit from that policy judgment. But I'm not sure that it's the correct one, and I wish that we could enjoy an open debate about whether the gains in aggregate economic efficiency would outweigh the costs to individuals. At minimum, shouldn't we explore alternatives like increasing social welfare payments for medically disadvantaged individuals while simultaneously allowing information about their medical histories to improve the accuracy of public and private decision-making? Maybe that approach wouldn't work, but I have not even heard it discussed. 3. Are we utilitarians or deontologists? One of the major dividing lines in these discussions is an implicit disagreement over the appropriate moral calculus. I default to consequentialism, so in my mind the foreseeable harms from criminality are equivalent to the potential for police abuse. Yet most people process the two in very different ways emotionally. My well-being is threatened much more directly by criminal gangs than it is by an oppressive state. Only a few months ago, I nearly lost my life when I was attacked in an alley by two thugs. Should I be forced to be a martyr for privacy when increased surveillance could have deterred their actions?