8 ms·

One should be aware that Norway already has very comprehensive registers and databases about the population. Currently, it has only been a benefit, I think, as

One should be aware that Norway already has very comprehensive registers and databases about the population. Currently, it has only been a benefit, I think, as it enables detailed quality control of say health care services and high-quality register studies. For example, all health/hospital records of deceased Norwegians are digitalized ten years after death and added to a national register. No way to refuse. In my opinion, that is much more invasive, yet it hasn't been discussed at all by the public https://helsedata.no/en/about-helsedata.no/ https://helsedata.no/en/about-helsedata.no/ https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/ https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/

nostromo95 4y ago
Invasive to whom? I'm certainly not going to be feeling outraged by medical records disclosure when I'm dead. Do with me what you will when I'm gone--I care more about my experience when I'm alive.
- amenghra 4y ago
  Hypothetical situation: how would you feel if your medical records and used to calculate health risks for your children/other family members and refuse specific insurances (or make them more expensive)?
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    Non hypothetically, if your parents have a genetic condition that can be passed onto their offspring, in my country you are checked against them to try prevent them or catch them in the early stages. For free (payed by the taxes)
  - nostromo95 4y ago
    That’s a good point. I was imagining some sort of anonymized records database—turns out you can look up specific names which I agree yields some undesirable outcomes.
ceejayoz 4y ago
Yep; societally, they've got a very different attitude towards privacy. Everyone's salary is publicly available online. (So's the fact that you looked!) https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239
- wiz21c 4y ago
  As said in the article, we already share our data with the supermarket, google, etc and whatever other systems that binds all of them together. In that situation, I'm happy that government has access to the same data because it gives it a way to balance the private sector power. Now what is needed is the ability to opt out.
  - Fatnino 4y ago
    We can opt out by not using store rewards programs. And some go even one step further by not using credit to buy items that might be detrimental should the wrong parties get that data. So don't buy booze and cigarettes on credit if you don't want your health insurance company to buy that data from your credit processor.
  - WanderPanda 4y ago
    Wow people really forgot that privacy is all about privacy with respect to the government because they are the ones with the monopoly on violence. It is tragic that people think private firms could ever be as evil as governments
    - matheusmoreira 4y ago
      At this very moment there are corporations worth trillions of dollars. More money than the worth of many countries combined. The people in charge of these companies command so much capital, they can more or less run the world if they so wish. All they need to do is set policies on loans and the entire world will literally change itself to conform. Corporations are no stranger to violence. They're no stranger to organized crime dealings and tight relationships with governments. Coca-Cola for example has straight up assassinated union leaders.
aaomidi 4y ago
Can't wait for this all to eventually leak. Countries need to realize data is not "free" and has a cost to it.
- meowtimemania 4y ago
  Is it not is already publicly known? Don’t think there’s anything to leak
  - _njyk 4y ago
    Yeah it's public so nothing to leak, it's meant to be like this, same in Estonia, your address is public, your name, your birthdate, +/- your face picture, all the land you possess, you can interrogate who is the owner of a specific car plate without any restrictions, see a map of all the traffic accidents with precise information (date, why, what, what was damaged). Then you have semi-public data like phone location (you just need to sign NDA), and guess what ? Everything is fine.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    > Is it not is already publicly known? Don’t think there’s anything to leak The purchases made by an individual, already public? That on that day you were in that place? That you read "The Lance" instead of "The Spear", that you read Comte instead of Hegel?
singularity2001 4y ago
If of all countries Norway turns into a digital totalitarian state it would break my heart. With much power comes much … risk.
- dotopotoro 4y ago
  I kind of dont believe this (norway becoming authoritarian), but every power given to the government is like additional leverage in a stock market. With big leverage, if your unlucky, you feel it so much more.
yunohn 4y ago
> In my opinion, that is much more invasive Sorry, what? You’re saying a digitised deaths registry is more invasive than tracking all supermarket purchases?
- rdsubhas 4y ago
  No. That's not what the parent comment is saying. They're saying that digitising the health records of the deceased is much more invasive.
  - yunohn 4y ago
    Fair enough, I missed that nuance. But to be honest, I don’t care what happens 10yrs after I die. I don’t want to be surveilled for the whole time I’m alive…
- karencarits 4y ago
  In my opinion, yes (regarding health records, as pointed out by others). Confidentiality is a core value in health care, it's even explicitly stated in the Geneva declaration: > AS A MEMBER OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION: > ... > I WILL RESPECT the secrets that are confided in me, even after the patient has died To me, financial information seems less private. Furthermore, I can use cash or ask a friend to buy things for me, but I cannot have a friend seeing the psychologist or having an abortion in my place. If I was struggling with some taboo-ish condition (say, pedophilic thoughts), the idea that this information would be kept and possibly leaked in the future, would heighten the bar for seeking help. And although I will be dead, my health records may contain information about the living, say information about heritable conditions.
kkfx 4y ago
Well, ten years after death is a thing, while you are alive is another... Also who register matter (private companies, no matter if on their own or formally for the public vs the public State directly totally on internal resources). Personally I agree we need statistics, data in general, but to be collected with EXTREME care and transparency because yes, we might spot health issues in advance and so save lives, we might anticipate needs and so satisfy them better with better forecasting/planning BUT we might also do nasty things. Try to imagine if a day resources start to be scarce, a dictatorial government rise supported by most people self-(propaganda)-convinced that that's the sole option to sort the situation out and such government start the old: it's not that bad but some work to make it bad against us, we need to took the down. So a social score born, became spread, with much general data on the population: how easy can be selectively killing or just addressing careers of various people thanks to the mass of data on them, accordingly to dictatorship NOT social needs? More "lighter" and general example: how can we prevent a cohort of people taking advantage of such big mass of data for their own profits at the expense of another cohort? It's not just a mere matter of privacy: if we ALL know anything about anyone or nothing about anyone we are on fair and equal conditions, some will take advantage some others not because some will be smarter, just more active etc than others, but overall situation should remain in a normal fair balance. If just very few know very much on almost anyone and most others know next to nothing about those few... Just imaging simple things like knowing with enough precision what people eat anywhere in a country: those who know can organize "better" (commercially) shelves and gain competitive advantage on competitors to a point perhaps of pushing them to the margins and then abuse the gained position to establish de-fact price policies on pretty anything. Even if data are public and collected only by the public, no one is corrupt etc those who can process such public data at scale can grab competitive advantages against all the rest. In fairness terms: just imaging you came from a bad health family: you might be drop for many job offer because of such legacy, pay more for some health insurances etc. You might say "hey, that's true but still fair", well, it's not. It's not because potential employers know something about you, you do not equally know something about them up front. At social scale we need a certain degree of incertitude to let the society evolve by nature instead of by planning because we MUST plan and we might even be good planner BUT nothing beat natural evolution in the long term and as a society we MUST think at the long terms. Individuals have, rightly, to think about their own life, so short an mean terms, but at a society, so State level we must also weight the very long terms. Our individual life is, unfortunately (well, for some at least) a not-that-short/not-that-long timeframe, States, populations can potentially last millennia. Planning even for a single century for us is well... More fantasy than science, and that's why we have to allow nature do it's job with a certain level of "background noise"...

nostromo95 4y ago

Invasive to whom? I'm certainly not going to be feeling outraged by medical records disclosure when I'm dead. Do with me what you will when I'm gone--I care more about my experience when I'm alive.

amenghra 4y ago
Hypothetical situation: how would you feel if your medical records and used to calculate health risks for your children/other family members and refuse specific insurances (or make them more expensive)?
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  Non hypothetically, if your parents have a genetic condition that can be passed onto their offspring, in my country you are checked against them to try prevent them or catch them in the early stages. For free (payed by the taxes)
- nostromo95 4y ago
  That’s a good point. I was imagining some sort of anonymized records database—turns out you can look up specific names which I agree yields some undesirable outcomes.

ceejayoz 4y ago

Yep; societally, they've got a very different attitude towards privacy. Everyone's salary is publicly available online. (So's the fact that you looked!) https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239

wiz21c 4y ago
As said in the article, we already share our data with the supermarket, google, etc and whatever other systems that binds all of them together. In that situation, I'm happy that government has access to the same data because it gives it a way to balance the private sector power. Now what is needed is the ability to opt out.
- Fatnino 4y ago
  We can opt out by not using store rewards programs. And some go even one step further by not using credit to buy items that might be detrimental should the wrong parties get that data. So don't buy booze and cigarettes on credit if you don't want your health insurance company to buy that data from your credit processor.
- WanderPanda 4y ago
  Wow people really forgot that privacy is all about privacy with respect to the government because they are the ones with the monopoly on violence. It is tragic that people think private firms could ever be as evil as governments
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    At this very moment there are corporations worth trillions of dollars. More money than the worth of many countries combined. The people in charge of these companies command so much capital, they can more or less run the world if they so wish. All they need to do is set policies on loans and the entire world will literally change itself to conform. Corporations are no stranger to violence. They're no stranger to organized crime dealings and tight relationships with governments. Coca-Cola for example has straight up assassinated union leaders.

aaomidi 4y ago

Can't wait for this all to eventually leak. Countries need to realize data is not "free" and has a cost to it.

meowtimemania 4y ago
Is it not is already publicly known? Don’t think there’s anything to leak
- _njyk 4y ago
  Yeah it's public so nothing to leak, it's meant to be like this, same in Estonia, your address is public, your name, your birthdate, +/- your face picture, all the land you possess, you can interrogate who is the owner of a specific car plate without any restrictions, see a map of all the traffic accidents with precise information (date, why, what, what was damaged). Then you have semi-public data like phone location (you just need to sign NDA), and guess what ? Everything is fine.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  > Is it not is already publicly known? Don’t think there’s anything to leak The purchases made by an individual, already public? That on that day you were in that place? That you read "The Lance" instead of "The Spear", that you read Comte instead of Hegel?

singularity2001 4y ago

If of all countries Norway turns into a digital totalitarian state it would break my heart. With much power comes much … risk.

dotopotoro 4y ago
I kind of dont believe this (norway becoming authoritarian), but every power given to the government is like additional leverage in a stock market. With big leverage, if your unlucky, you feel it so much more.

yunohn 4y ago

> In my opinion, that is much more invasive Sorry, what? You’re saying a digitised deaths registry is more invasive than tracking all supermarket purchases?

rdsubhas 4y ago
No. That's not what the parent comment is saying. They're saying that digitising the health records of the deceased is much more invasive.
- yunohn 4y ago
  Fair enough, I missed that nuance. But to be honest, I don’t care what happens 10yrs after I die. I don’t want to be surveilled for the whole time I’m alive…
karencarits 4y ago
In my opinion, yes (regarding health records, as pointed out by others). Confidentiality is a core value in health care, it's even explicitly stated in the Geneva declaration: > AS A MEMBER OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION: > ... > I WILL RESPECT the secrets that are confided in me, even after the patient has died To me, financial information seems less private. Furthermore, I can use cash or ask a friend to buy things for me, but I cannot have a friend seeing the psychologist or having an abortion in my place. If I was struggling with some taboo-ish condition (say, pedophilic thoughts), the idea that this information would be kept and possibly leaked in the future, would heighten the bar for seeking help. And although I will be dead, my health records may contain information about the living, say information about heritable conditions.

kkfx 4y ago

Well, ten years after death is a thing, while you are alive is another... Also who register matter (private companies, no matter if on their own or formally for the public vs the public State directly totally on internal resources). Personally I agree we need statistics, data in general, but to be collected with EXTREME care and transparency because yes, we might spot health issues in advance and so save lives, we might anticipate needs and so satisfy them better with better forecasting/planning BUT we might also do nasty things. Try to imagine if a day resources start to be scarce, a dictatorial government rise supported by most people self-(propaganda)-convinced that that's the sole option to sort the situation out and such government start the old: it's not that bad but some work to make it bad against us, we need to took the down. So a social score born, became spread, with much general data on the population: how easy can be selectively killing or just addressing careers of various people thanks to the mass of data on them, accordingly to dictatorship NOT social needs? More "lighter" and general example: how can we prevent a cohort of people taking advantage of such big mass of data for their own profits at the expense of another cohort? It's not just a mere matter of privacy: if we ALL know anything about anyone or nothing about anyone we are on fair and equal conditions, some will take advantage some others not because some will be smarter, just more active etc than others, but overall situation should remain in a normal fair balance. If just very few know very much on almost anyone and most others know next to nothing about those few... Just imaging simple things like knowing with enough precision what people eat anywhere in a country: those who know can organize "better" (commercially) shelves and gain competitive advantage on competitors to a point perhaps of pushing them to the margins and then abuse the gained position to establish de-fact price policies on pretty anything. Even if data are public and collected only by the public, no one is corrupt etc those who can process such public data at scale can grab competitive advantages against all the rest. In fairness terms: just imaging you came from a bad health family: you might be drop for many job offer because of such legacy, pay more for some health insurances etc. You might say "hey, that's true but still fair", well, it's not. It's not because potential employers know something about you, you do not equally know something about them up front. At social scale we need a certain degree of incertitude to let the society evolve by nature instead of by planning because we MUST plan and we might even be good planner BUT nothing beat natural evolution in the long term and as a society we MUST think at the long terms. Individuals have, rightly, to think about their own life, so short an mean terms, but at a society, so State level we must also weight the very long terms. Our individual life is, unfortunately (well, for some at least) a not-that-short/not-that-long timeframe, States, populations can potentially last millennia. Planning even for a single century for us is well... More fantasy than science, and that's why we have to allow nature do it's job with a certain level of "background noise"...