8 ms·

The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

53 points by troydavis 7y ago

Fakira 7y ago
Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. Data is one area where humanity has made the fastest progress compared to Cars and Food.
- bumby 7y ago
  Care to elaborate? Outside of unleaded gas, most externalities in the car industry seem to progress slowly in the absence of regulation. Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    > Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities Many regulated risks in automobiles are not external, which is I think where they're out of bounds. I think a certain amount of regulation to ensure consumers are informed of the internal risks of an automobile is reasonable; but the government really oughtn't tell you how safe your car must be for you. Externalities, as you say, are the appropriate domain of regulation. For some people, it may be preferable to have better fuel economy at a lower price (i.e. Honda can make the Honda Insight again) even if the operator risk is higher; but they should not be allowed to drive a vehicle without adequate stopping, acceleration, and speed, or one which poses excessive risk to fire and rescue workers, other motorists, or pedestrians, or has excessive emissions in their use case. Right now, emissions regulations on automobiles focus on manufacturer fleet emissions (which is an unabashed pro-incumbent regulation), and emissions on a fixed test cycle; but this means you can pay for the privilege of being in the upper section of a fleet's emissions. Similar with the regulations on stopping speed, acceleration, and pedestrian safety: it seems to often depend on the class of vehicle, and so you can pay for the privilege of worse safety externalities.
    - bumby 7y ago
      I think the issue is one of pragmatism. CAFE standards are meant to be an average to allow some vehicles to be designed to meet very different end use needs. Same with the test beds. There's definitely room for improvement. My point was that automotive manufacturers are not particularly incentivized to improve on areas that don't align with their bottom line. Are you advocating for more regulation in terms of performance parameters?
      - microcolonel 7y ago
        > Are you advocating for more regulation in terms of performance parameters? I'm saying I'd prefer consistent (between vehicle classes) regulation of performance parameters which have externalities; and the abolition of non-normalized fleet-based targets (since they privilege the largest manufacturers). If the goal is to reduce external risk, the threshold of acceptable risk should be the same for all motorists as a matter of fairness. A possible alternative to CAFE is a specialized cap and trade market. I get that they did think a bit about this stuff when they implemented it, but I feel like it has weird effects in practice, especially when gaming it enters medium-long term corporate strategy. I think it would be spectacular if inefficiency was purchased on a per-vehicle or per-lot basis from manufacturers who exceed the target, and efficiency was sold in turn to those. Not sure how these transactions would be cleared, but I'm sure something reasonable could be worked out. This would do away with adjustments/exemptions based on vehicle footprint (CAFE targets currently differ based on mean vehicle footprint).
        bumby 7y ago
        I think I agree in an idealized sense, but also think if this approach was taken it would decimate the ability to create certain vehicles, especially those used in heavy-duty applications. I don't know the history of CAFE standards but it may very well have been a practical choice...either get some form of progress or dig our heels in on an idealized version that never gets adopted.
- journalctl 7y ago
  Progress for whom?
- jonahx 7y ago
  > not to protect our Food What system would you prefer to protect your food?
  - temac 7y ago
    If you are any good you can afford food taster who work for you and die if the food was not good. If you are not good enough and are forced to work as a food taster, bad for you, but that's just survival of the fittest and will eventually make the human race stronger.
    - notacoward 7y ago
      What's scary is that there are plenty of people - especially here - who would say that without meaning it as satire.
    - blotter_paper 7y ago
      Lulzy parody. Here's an actual take: I would like to accept the risk of eating a pufferfish if I want to. If somebody wants to sell me a prepared pufferfish, and they haven't been authorized to do so by the government, I would like to make my own decision about whether I trust that person to prepare a pufferfish correctly. If I die from eating that pufferfish, I'm okay with that; I accepted the risk. I want the right to commit suicide on purpose, and I want the right to take risks which might result in my unindented but reasonably likely death. I don't see why a bureaucrat should have anything to do with me making potentially dumb decisions and accepting the consequences for myself.
      - claudiawerner 7y ago
        A parody for sure, but apparently not as "lulzy" as you're making it out to be. It's all well and good that you believe you have the faculty to distinguish improperly prepared fish from properly prepared fish, but many people do not, and improperly prepared fish will be sold cheaper than the prepared variety, which means that people who want fish but can't afford to pay much for it will be the ones buying the improperly prepared stuff. You can already see this at some level today when poorer people tend to buy a lot of junk food that's cheaper (speaking in terms of opportunity cost here too) than healthier alternatives, and a variety of other unhealthy things (cigarettes, alcohol). I'm not saying unhealthy things should be banned, I'm saying that deadly things absolutely should be. If you want to take the risk of killing yourself (it's absolutely absurd that you mention this) then there are probably more fun ways to do it than arguing the government should allow people to sell potentially deadly food. Even then, you've selected a weird subset of dangerous food - everyone knows pufferfish is dangerous, far fewer people know which specific compounds that may be in food sold in an unregulated food market can lead to cancers and other diseases in the long term. You need to ask what the advantage of an unregulated food market is outside of a very specific conception of freedom which entails "I should be able to do anything I want to and you can't stop me.", which is (1) not the only conception of freedom around (2) is unworkable in a society with rich and poor, educated and uneducated, critical and uncritical, disabled and able bodied, etc.
- dlp211 7y ago
  I just don't get where this type of ideaology comes from. There are plenty of countries with weak governments and not one of them is successful.
  - bhupy 7y ago
    I think OP might have meant that weaker regulation/government is a necessary condition, not necessarily a sufficient one.
    - dlp211 7y ago
      Then I would expect to see a counterexample to my point.
      - bhupy 7y ago
        I don’t follow? It could be that your counterexamples include the necessary condition, but don’t have the sufficient conditions. In the abstract, if conditions A, B, and C are stated as required to achieve a desired outcome, the fact there happen to be examples of undesirable outcomes with condition A (but implicitly lacking conditions B and/or C) is not enough to prove that condition A is NOT a necessary condition for a desired outcome.
- mch82 7y ago
  Is it true regulation slows progress? History shows regulation speeds technical progress. - Manhattan Project - Apollo program - Public university research - ARPANET - Aircraft - Spacecraft ...
- matz1 7y ago
  >Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. This. Sure I would like some protection for our food but i hate the too much protection that currently US government has right now.
bognition 7y ago
Probably because the threat is relatively new. It took hundreds of thousands of deaths and decades to get us to the current mandated safety standards for cars. It’s going to take a while for tech to catch up.
- notelonmusk 7y ago
  The perceived impact is much less noticeable than deaths. When the bodies pile up you invest in seatbelt regulations, and may even create jobs making them. What if there's no bodies to count?
  - pdkl95 7y ago
    > The perceived impact is much less noticeable Especially after the data is laundered with machine learning and other opaque algorithms.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    There will be bodies eventually. Just, you know, at scale.
- dyarosla 7y ago
  Heck, most people in government simply don’t even understand the issue, let alone figuring out how to solve it. AFAIK only one US 2020 presidential candidate atm is even talking about data rights.
  - qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago
    This is a good argument for term limits. The old timer's holding on to their power is not doing anyone any good.
    - zdragnar 7y ago
      There are arguments for term limits, but this isn't one of them. No person can be an expert in everything the government can potentially regulate.
lacampbell 7y ago
Why not our information? Nationalise the New York Times!
- libbyc5 7y ago
  I've seen one instance where the NYT seemed to recognized their complicity in the problem https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/opinion/data-privacy-tracking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/opinion/data-privacy-trac... I was pretty proud of them then
mbostleman 7y ago
Because our food and our cars are something made by someone else that we will buy in the future, at which point the government’s involvement ceases. “Our” data is something that is generated by us, about us, and is ongoing. The last thing some of us want is the government even having access to it much less charged with “protecting” it.
- mch82 7y ago
  How come access to the data is needed to protect it?
- notacoward 7y ago
  This "directionality" is the first thing I thought of too. Unlike these other things, data originates with the consumer. Also, the transfer between consumer and platform usually does not include a financial component so it's not "commerce" in the usual sense. The issues involved are just as important despite these differences, the need (however great or small) for regulation doesn't change either, but such differences definitely affect what kinds of regulation might be appropriate or how they might be applied.
tomohawk 7y ago
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) could not even protect the information of people with security clearances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management... Trey Gowdy's questioning of the people in charge of the OPM is a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK-zEGjxuAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK-zEGjxuAA
- pstuart 7y ago
  The GOP is anti-government and spares no chance to demonstrate that. That doesn't forgive the failure, but instead of saying "let's fix it then", the answer is always: private enterprise!
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    Uhm, no. I'm anti-government; the GOP likes having the government erect monuments to their favored religion, spy on every US citizen, invade other governments to prop up the petrodollar, make it difficult for people to get abortions, etc. The American left and right both support government invading different facets our private lives to varying degrees. Neither are anarchists, or anything close to it.
  - tomohawk 7y ago
    Other than Trey Gowdy being a member of the GOP, not sure what you're criticizing here. His line of questioning was not partisan, and got to the heart of the matter - their lack of competence and ability to follow regulations and/or written contracts. The OPM had a serious data breach, and demonstrated a marked lack of ability to do their job. To date, they have not been held accountable, unless you count the stern questioning. What remedy would you prescribe to fix OPM? How would you hold them accountable?
    - pstuart 7y ago
      The NSA ostensibly provides "cybersecurity" support and services -- they should be partners in securing government infrastructure. Maybe they were with OMB (but clearly not enough). Accountability is good and should happen. Thus far we've seen very little accountability for data breaches in the private sector, so they're not alone. I don't know the answer as to how to make accountability really work in general -- because it becomes game theory of how to create that space without becoming paralyzed by fear to act.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
djohnston 7y ago
These days I can't help but read every NYT piece as a desperate plea to the govt for a rescue operation from its tech usurper. Also, the govt is demonstrably worse at protecting information than any FAANG, and they are all abiding by GDPR which is the right regulation IMO
- Despegar 7y ago
  GDPR is literally the government protecting people's privacy and data. That's what this article is advocating for.
  - jakeogh 7y ago
    It's gov regulation of what one can remember, with some forced speech thrown in.
  - djohnston 7y ago
    In practice, aren't FAANG giving same protections to Americans? I know they didn't have to, but I thought they would since it would be easier to maintain in long run
    - ilovetux 7y ago
      This argument only holds if it wouldn't affect their profit.
- dlp211 7y ago
  Protecting data via regulation doesn't require the government have access to the data.
geoalchimista 7y ago
Because that would grant the government the power that enables it to become a worse perpetrator even than the big tech?
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  I think Snowden showed the government already is a much worse data privacy perpetrator.
seer 7y ago
I know that HN’s libertarian views often conflict with the top down EU bureaucracy. But when I heard about GDPR here in europe I thought to myself - that looks very close to what all those people have been wishing for - and its actually here now. It remains to be seen if it holds up in practice what it offers in spirit. But the idea that companies are forced to think about my personal data as if it was payment credentials, with similar rigor, and penalties, just sounds so awesome to me as a customer. In the EU personal data _is_ protected as if its cars, food, trains or planes. And honestly its great :)
Nasrudith 7y ago
That is a confusion if shared words being assumes in the same meaning. Data protection is fundamentally nothing like car or food safety. The other two can literally directly kill you. Data also acts "at a distance". If I smash a cooy of your car or poison a copy of your lunch it won't harm you in any way. Not so if sensitive information leaks. Not to mention the abuse potential is fundamentally massively different. It isn't apples to oranges but apples to formica countertops
- Despegar 7y ago
  Financial products exist only in databases and they can't kill you, yet they're heavily regulated for good reason.
  - otterley 7y ago
    That’s because the data there counts the amount of money they owe their customers.
deltron3030 7y ago
Maybe because of population growth. Food and car failure is directly linked to mass deaths and diseases, potentially decreasing the population, free data flow is linked to better business decisions, and therefore wealth for starting families, potentially increasing the population. So if population growth is your priority as nation, it could make sense to allow free data flow if you ignore potential long term side effects that could counter this. The downsides of free data flow and the permanence of personal data are mostly affecting the mental health of people which could result in more deaths from drug abuse and other self destructive behaviors, or even civil wars long term. This of course could contradict free data flow as a viable strategy for long term population growth. A battle between short and long term politics, with long term politics being clearly at a disadvantage because they're less obvious and harder to predict/measure, and harder to sell in political campaigns.
Tycho 7y ago
The great public works of the 21st century, the Hoover Dams of our time, will be privacy-preserving digital infrastructure.
dependenttypes 7y ago
"Data protection" goes against the spirit of free software and it is similar to patents and copyright.
jonbronson 7y ago
Largley because of a paralyzed legislative branch, heavily indebted to corporate donors, compounded by a polarized public that is largely too distracted to focus on this fundamental problem.
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  Plot twist: zooming out of the USA, you've just described most countries. Incidentally, countries as a concept may greatly distract the so-fragmented public from many a no less fundamental problem...
ddingus 7y ago
One would wonder. I am pro this idea. I am not sure it can be done via technical means alone. But, govt is super dysfunctional too. We, as people, have work to do in the US.
einpoklum 7y ago
If the US government protected your food, people would not be sold so much crap full of carcinogenic additives or cooked up in chemical vats. As for cars - the government protects car _manufacturers_, if at all. And that's also in the form of "anti-protection" of public transport... Finally - how would the US government protect your data if it's intent on getting its hands on a copy of as much of it as it can, then mining it and searching it for various purposes? (Snowden revelations) PS - The firewall blocks me :-(
megablast 7y ago
> The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. I wish they would stop protecting cars and start protecting people. 40,000 die every single year due to cars, and over 4 million injured or disabled.
Gys 7y ago
Many people die in car accidents and die from food poisoning. How many people die each year from unprotected data? Disclaimer: cannot read the article

53 points by troydavis 7y ago

Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. Data is one area where humanity has made the fastest progress compared to Cars and Food.

bumby 7y ago
Care to elaborate? Outside of unleaded gas, most externalities in the car industry seem to progress slowly in the absence of regulation. Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities Many regulated risks in automobiles are not external, which is I think where they're out of bounds. I think a certain amount of regulation to ensure consumers are informed of the internal risks of an automobile is reasonable; but the government really oughtn't tell you how safe your car must be for you. Externalities, as you say, are the appropriate domain of regulation. For some people, it may be preferable to have better fuel economy at a lower price (i.e. Honda can make the Honda Insight again) even if the operator risk is higher; but they should not be allowed to drive a vehicle without adequate stopping, acceleration, and speed, or one which poses excessive risk to fire and rescue workers, other motorists, or pedestrians, or has excessive emissions in their use case. Right now, emissions regulations on automobiles focus on manufacturer fleet emissions (which is an unabashed pro-incumbent regulation), and emissions on a fixed test cycle; but this means you can pay for the privilege of being in the upper section of a fleet's emissions. Similar with the regulations on stopping speed, acceleration, and pedestrian safety: it seems to often depend on the class of vehicle, and so you can pay for the privilege of worse safety externalities.
  - bumby 7y ago
    I think the issue is one of pragmatism. CAFE standards are meant to be an average to allow some vehicles to be designed to meet very different end use needs. Same with the test beds. There's definitely room for improvement. My point was that automotive manufacturers are not particularly incentivized to improve on areas that don't align with their bottom line. Are you advocating for more regulation in terms of performance parameters?
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      > Are you advocating for more regulation in terms of performance parameters? I'm saying I'd prefer consistent (between vehicle classes) regulation of performance parameters which have externalities; and the abolition of non-normalized fleet-based targets (since they privilege the largest manufacturers). If the goal is to reduce external risk, the threshold of acceptable risk should be the same for all motorists as a matter of fairness. A possible alternative to CAFE is a specialized cap and trade market. I get that they did think a bit about this stuff when they implemented it, but I feel like it has weird effects in practice, especially when gaming it enters medium-long term corporate strategy. I think it would be spectacular if inefficiency was purchased on a per-vehicle or per-lot basis from manufacturers who exceed the target, and efficiency was sold in turn to those. Not sure how these transactions would be cleared, but I'm sure something reasonable could be worked out. This would do away with adjustments/exemptions based on vehicle footprint (CAFE targets currently differ based on mean vehicle footprint).
      - bumby 7y ago
        I think I agree in an idealized sense, but also think if this approach was taken it would decimate the ability to create certain vehicles, especially those used in heavy-duty applications. I don't know the history of CAFE standards but it may very well have been a practical choice...either get some form of progress or dig our heels in on an idealized version that never gets adopted.
journalctl 7y ago
Progress for whom?
jonahx 7y ago
> not to protect our Food What system would you prefer to protect your food?
- temac 7y ago
  If you are any good you can afford food taster who work for you and die if the food was not good. If you are not good enough and are forced to work as a food taster, bad for you, but that's just survival of the fittest and will eventually make the human race stronger.
  - notacoward 7y ago
    What's scary is that there are plenty of people - especially here - who would say that without meaning it as satire.
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    Lulzy parody. Here's an actual take: I would like to accept the risk of eating a pufferfish if I want to. If somebody wants to sell me a prepared pufferfish, and they haven't been authorized to do so by the government, I would like to make my own decision about whether I trust that person to prepare a pufferfish correctly. If I die from eating that pufferfish, I'm okay with that; I accepted the risk. I want the right to commit suicide on purpose, and I want the right to take risks which might result in my unindented but reasonably likely death. I don't see why a bureaucrat should have anything to do with me making potentially dumb decisions and accepting the consequences for myself.
    - claudiawerner 7y ago
      A parody for sure, but apparently not as "lulzy" as you're making it out to be. It's all well and good that you believe you have the faculty to distinguish improperly prepared fish from properly prepared fish, but many people do not, and improperly prepared fish will be sold cheaper than the prepared variety, which means that people who want fish but can't afford to pay much for it will be the ones buying the improperly prepared stuff. You can already see this at some level today when poorer people tend to buy a lot of junk food that's cheaper (speaking in terms of opportunity cost here too) than healthier alternatives, and a variety of other unhealthy things (cigarettes, alcohol). I'm not saying unhealthy things should be banned, I'm saying that deadly things absolutely should be. If you want to take the risk of killing yourself (it's absolutely absurd that you mention this) then there are probably more fun ways to do it than arguing the government should allow people to sell potentially deadly food. Even then, you've selected a weird subset of dangerous food - everyone knows pufferfish is dangerous, far fewer people know which specific compounds that may be in food sold in an unregulated food market can lead to cancers and other diseases in the long term. You need to ask what the advantage of an unregulated food market is outside of a very specific conception of freedom which entails "I should be able to do anything I want to and you can't stop me.", which is (1) not the only conception of freedom around (2) is unworkable in a society with rich and poor, educated and uneducated, critical and uncritical, disabled and able bodied, etc.
dlp211 7y ago
I just don't get where this type of ideaology comes from. There are plenty of countries with weak governments and not one of them is successful.
- bhupy 7y ago
  I think OP might have meant that weaker regulation/government is a necessary condition, not necessarily a sufficient one.
  - dlp211 7y ago
    Then I would expect to see a counterexample to my point.
    - bhupy 7y ago
      I don’t follow? It could be that your counterexamples include the necessary condition, but don’t have the sufficient conditions. In the abstract, if conditions A, B, and C are stated as required to achieve a desired outcome, the fact there happen to be examples of undesirable outcomes with condition A (but implicitly lacking conditions B and/or C) is not enough to prove that condition A is NOT a necessary condition for a desired outcome.
mch82 7y ago
Is it true regulation slows progress? History shows regulation speeds technical progress. - Manhattan Project - Apollo program - Public university research - ARPANET - Aircraft - Spacecraft ...
matz1 7y ago
>Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. This. Sure I would like some protection for our food but i hate the too much protection that currently US government has right now.

bognition 7y ago

Probably because the threat is relatively new. It took hundreds of thousands of deaths and decades to get us to the current mandated safety standards for cars. It’s going to take a while for tech to catch up.

notelonmusk 7y ago
The perceived impact is much less noticeable than deaths. When the bodies pile up you invest in seatbelt regulations, and may even create jobs making them. What if there's no bodies to count?
- pdkl95 7y ago
  > The perceived impact is much less noticeable Especially after the data is laundered with machine learning and other opaque algorithms.
- mindslight 7y ago
  There will be bodies eventually. Just, you know, at scale.
dyarosla 7y ago
Heck, most people in government simply don’t even understand the issue, let alone figuring out how to solve it. AFAIK only one US 2020 presidential candidate atm is even talking about data rights.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago
  This is a good argument for term limits. The old timer's holding on to their power is not doing anyone any good.
  - zdragnar 7y ago
    There are arguments for term limits, but this isn't one of them. No person can be an expert in everything the government can potentially regulate.

lacampbell 7y ago

Why not our information? Nationalise the New York Times!

libbyc5 7y ago
I've seen one instance where the NYT seemed to recognized their complicity in the problem https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/opinion/data-privacy-tracking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/opinion/data-privacy-trac... I was pretty proud of them then

mbostleman 7y ago

Because our food and our cars are something made by someone else that we will buy in the future, at which point the government’s involvement ceases. “Our” data is something that is generated by us, about us, and is ongoing. The last thing some of us want is the government even having access to it much less charged with “protecting” it.

mch82 7y ago
How come access to the data is needed to protect it?
notacoward 7y ago
This "directionality" is the first thing I thought of too. Unlike these other things, data originates with the consumer. Also, the transfer between consumer and platform usually does not include a financial component so it's not "commerce" in the usual sense. The issues involved are just as important despite these differences, the need (however great or small) for regulation doesn't change either, but such differences definitely affect what kinds of regulation might be appropriate or how they might be applied.

tomohawk 7y ago

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) could not even protect the information of people with security clearances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management... Trey Gowdy's questioning of the people in charge of the OPM is a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK-zEGjxuAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK-zEGjxuAA

pstuart 7y ago
The GOP is anti-government and spares no chance to demonstrate that. That doesn't forgive the failure, but instead of saying "let's fix it then", the answer is always: private enterprise!
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  Uhm, no. I'm anti-government; the GOP likes having the government erect monuments to their favored religion, spy on every US citizen, invade other governments to prop up the petrodollar, make it difficult for people to get abortions, etc. The American left and right both support government invading different facets our private lives to varying degrees. Neither are anarchists, or anything close to it.
- tomohawk 7y ago
  Other than Trey Gowdy being a member of the GOP, not sure what you're criticizing here. His line of questioning was not partisan, and got to the heart of the matter - their lack of competence and ability to follow regulations and/or written contracts. The OPM had a serious data breach, and demonstrated a marked lack of ability to do their job. To date, they have not been held accountable, unless you count the stern questioning. What remedy would you prescribe to fix OPM? How would you hold them accountable?
  - pstuart 7y ago
    The NSA ostensibly provides "cybersecurity" support and services -- they should be partners in securing government infrastructure. Maybe they were with OMB (but clearly not enough). Accountability is good and should happen. Thus far we've seen very little accountability for data breaches in the private sector, so they're not alone. I don't know the answer as to how to make accountability really work in general -- because it becomes game theory of how to create that space without becoming paralyzed by fear to act.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

djohnston 7y ago

These days I can't help but read every NYT piece as a desperate plea to the govt for a rescue operation from its tech usurper. Also, the govt is demonstrably worse at protecting information than any FAANG, and they are all abiding by GDPR which is the right regulation IMO

Despegar 7y ago
GDPR is literally the government protecting people's privacy and data. That's what this article is advocating for.
- jakeogh 7y ago
  It's gov regulation of what one can remember, with some forced speech thrown in.
- djohnston 7y ago
  In practice, aren't FAANG giving same protections to Americans? I know they didn't have to, but I thought they would since it would be easier to maintain in long run
  - ilovetux 7y ago
    This argument only holds if it wouldn't affect their profit.
dlp211 7y ago
Protecting data via regulation doesn't require the government have access to the data.

geoalchimista 7y ago

Because that would grant the government the power that enables it to become a worse perpetrator even than the big tech?

BurningFrog 7y ago
I think Snowden showed the government already is a much worse data privacy perpetrator.

seer 7y ago

I know that HN’s libertarian views often conflict with the top down EU bureaucracy. But when I heard about GDPR here in europe I thought to myself - that looks very close to what all those people have been wishing for - and its actually here now. It remains to be seen if it holds up in practice what it offers in spirit. But the idea that companies are forced to think about my personal data as if it was payment credentials, with similar rigor, and penalties, just sounds so awesome to me as a customer. In the EU personal data _is_ protected as if its cars, food, trains or planes. And honestly its great :)

Nasrudith 7y ago

That is a confusion if shared words being assumes in the same meaning. Data protection is fundamentally nothing like car or food safety. The other two can literally directly kill you. Data also acts "at a distance". If I smash a cooy of your car or poison a copy of your lunch it won't harm you in any way. Not so if sensitive information leaks. Not to mention the abuse potential is fundamentally massively different. It isn't apples to oranges but apples to formica countertops

Despegar 7y ago
Financial products exist only in databases and they can't kill you, yet they're heavily regulated for good reason.
- otterley 7y ago
  That’s because the data there counts the amount of money they owe their customers.

deltron3030 7y ago

Maybe because of population growth. Food and car failure is directly linked to mass deaths and diseases, potentially decreasing the population, free data flow is linked to better business decisions, and therefore wealth for starting families, potentially increasing the population. So if population growth is your priority as nation, it could make sense to allow free data flow if you ignore potential long term side effects that could counter this. The downsides of free data flow and the permanence of personal data are mostly affecting the mental health of people which could result in more deaths from drug abuse and other self destructive behaviors, or even civil wars long term. This of course could contradict free data flow as a viable strategy for long term population growth. A battle between short and long term politics, with long term politics being clearly at a disadvantage because they're less obvious and harder to predict/measure, and harder to sell in political campaigns.

Tycho 7y ago

The great public works of the 21st century, the Hoover Dams of our time, will be privacy-preserving digital infrastructure.

dependenttypes 7y ago

"Data protection" goes against the spirit of free software and it is similar to patents and copyright.

jonbronson 7y ago

Largley because of a paralyzed legislative branch, heavily indebted to corporate donors, compounded by a polarized public that is largely too distracted to focus on this fundamental problem.

K0SM0S 7y ago
Plot twist: zooming out of the USA, you've just described most countries. Incidentally, countries as a concept may greatly distract the so-fragmented public from many a no less fundamental problem...

ddingus 7y ago

One would wonder. I am pro this idea. I am not sure it can be done via technical means alone. But, govt is super dysfunctional too. We, as people, have work to do in the US.

einpoklum 7y ago

If the US government protected your food, people would not be sold so much crap full of carcinogenic additives or cooked up in chemical vats. As for cars - the government protects car _manufacturers_, if at all. And that's also in the form of "anti-protection" of public transport... Finally - how would the US government protect your data if it's intent on getting its hands on a copy of as much of it as it can, then mining it and searching it for various purposes? (Snowden revelations) PS - The firewall blocks me :-(

megablast 7y ago

> The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. I wish they would stop protecting cars and start protecting people. 40,000 die every single year due to cars, and over 4 million injured or disabled.

Gys 7y ago

Many people die in car accidents and die from food poisoning. How many people die each year from unprotected data? Disclaimer: cannot read the article