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HN tends to be highly skeptical of “if you don’t have anything to hide, you wouldn’t mind the lack of privacy” arguments. I personally see a future where emplo
by gcr 2y ago
HN tends to be highly skeptical of “if you don’t have anything to hide, you wouldn’t mind the lack of privacy” arguments.
I personally see a future where employers mandate the use of Recall and will audit employees’ activity for “compliance” purposes, to quash dissent, etc. I don’t like this future. (Employers already have the legal right to do this, but the implementation is neither commonly available nor commonly accepted, so Recall may nudge the needle on societal acceptance.)
In this future, you’d be stopped at the border and asked to hand over your Recall data and sanctioned based on political articles you read etc etc, imagine whatever slippery slope you like here.
- robin_reala 2y agoEmployers already have the legal right to do this You know the thing about medical headlines where it turns out you can broadly tack “in mice” on the end to get a truer version? For statements like this you can usually add “in the US” and come away a little wiser. This is absolutely not the case everywhere else.
- nozzlegear 2y agoDoes that make the statement any less relevant?
- robin_reala 2y agoYes, because in large parts of the world it’s not true, and Recall is shipping globally.
- nozzlegear 2y agoSo still relevant to, at a minimum, almost 350 million people? More likely it will actually work out to (total world population - amount of people covered by GDPR or the very few existing laws like it). Like I get that the EU has a cool privacy law but sitting in your ivory tower chortling at the dumb Americans doesn’t negate the fact that Microsoft is building this giant invasion of privacy in the first place.
- kirth_gersen 2y agoNot entirely sure that Recall won't essentially sidestep most of the protections of the EU privacy laws by touting that the data is stored locally and so it is "yours". Never mind that this basically provides a huge incentive for bad actors to get "your" data however they can. Microsoft will have done all the work of gathering it for them in one easy target.
- DEADMINCE 2y ago> You know the thing about medical headlines where it turns out you can broadly tack “in mice” on the end to get a truer version? No?
- robin_reala 2y agohttps://x.com/justsaysinmice https://x.com/justsaysinmice was the originator.
- Beldin 2y ago> HN tends to be highly skeptical of “if you don’t have anything to hide, you wouldn’t mind the lack of privacy” arguments. Well, those arguments flip the narrative. No one has to justify their privacy; invasion of privacy needs to be justified - and, when warranted, scope needs to be enforced. In case anyone needs an analogue: when paying, you don't give the seller access to all of your money. They justify a particular amount and if you agree, they get the right to only that. With money, we tend to call folks who take more than warranted "robbers" or "thieves". I think society would be in a better state of we viewed invasion of privacy as negatively.