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There is no convincing argument. The "I have nothing to hide" defense is one that can't be toppled until they experience something that illuminates it for them

There is no convincing argument. The "I have nothing to hide" defense is one that can't be toppled until they experience something that illuminates it for them (something I haven't seen happen), argument/discussion is worthless. My family, friends, and co-workers (developers) all use this. They do not care, and those of us who do are, to them, weirdly concerned about something trivial in their mind.

mdorazio 8y ago
The best response to this is an overt question to do something that massively invades privacy. Ex., "Can I watch you have sex if you have nothing to hide?". The obvious and immediate answer is, "Of course not." which opens the door to a dialogue about why privacy is important regardless of whether or not you have something to hide.
- libraryatnight 8y ago
  Nah. That doesn't work. They just say "nobody is watching me shower/have sex/etc" and that pretty much kills it. Until someone actually watches them have sex and they know about it, they won't care.
- baddox 8y ago
  But people would already get upset at privacy violations of that kind and magnitude.
  - arvinsim 8y ago
    But it doesn't happen on the mass scale on that kind of magnitude. Hence, the indifference.
autoexec 8y ago
This is why I think most people don't care about privacy issues. They may run into all kinds of situations where they are screwed over because of the data companies have collected from them. Their health insurance rates might go up, they might not get a call back from a potential employer, they might even have their identity stolen but they won't know any of that was caused by the data a company took from them that was eventually sold or leaked to others. If they don't know when their data is used against them, or how, or by who it doesn't change the fact that they are worse off for it, but they don't have the ability to connect the dots and see the problem.

mdorazio 8y ago

The best response to this is an overt question to do something that massively invades privacy. Ex., "Can I watch you have sex if you have nothing to hide?". The obvious and immediate answer is, "Of course not." which opens the door to a dialogue about why privacy is important regardless of whether or not you have something to hide.

libraryatnight 8y ago
Nah. That doesn't work. They just say "nobody is watching me shower/have sex/etc" and that pretty much kills it. Until someone actually watches them have sex and they know about it, they won't care.
baddox 8y ago
But people would already get upset at privacy violations of that kind and magnitude.
- arvinsim 8y ago
  But it doesn't happen on the mass scale on that kind of magnitude. Hence, the indifference.

autoexec 8y ago

This is why I think most people don't care about privacy issues. They may run into all kinds of situations where they are screwed over because of the data companies have collected from them. Their health insurance rates might go up, they might not get a call back from a potential employer, they might even have their identity stolen but they won't know any of that was caused by the data a company took from them that was eventually sold or leaked to others. If they don't know when their data is used against them, or how, or by who it doesn't change the fact that they are worse off for it, but they don't have the ability to connect the dots and see the problem.