3 ms·

>The problem is not better hiding places - the problem is having to hide in the first place. You are missing the point of privacy. the whole point of privacy

by lsc 14y ago

>The problem is not better hiding places - the problem is having to hide in the first place. You are missing the point of privacy. the whole point of privacy is that society is sometimes wrong. And if you can't tell I'm doing it without peeking in my bedroom window? (which is to say, if you can't tell I'm doing something without violating my privacy) well, that makes a reasonable heuristic for "maybe you shouldn't enforce rules about it"

lmm 14y ago
The amount of things we can infer from publicly available information - where you were seen on the public streets, what you've worn when visiting certain groups - is growing immensely. For many, many things we only ever had "privacy through obscurity"; this is going away now and will not be coming back, and trying to make our lives private again is like trying to make bits uncopyable or water not wet. We should be figuring out how to adapt rather than trying to go back to how we were.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Thank you - exactly right. There is no defence, just new forms of trust. To my mind the biggest single defence is for everyone who snoops on me, I should know they are snooping - the act of collecting data should itself become public knowledge. Maybe its not a great defence - but I would welcome any discussion on the topic, because it seems not to be discussed much.
  - lmm 14y ago
    What exactly would you require of whom? Everyone who takes a photo, scrapes a website? To what, register their activities in some centralized database? There are lots of approaches that sound like easy solutions until you start thinking about the details of how they would work.
    - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
      Well, where better to debate some of the details:-) I would simply suggest that any company that performs a "data match" - between data held internally and an "internal or external identifier" that can be directly linked to an individual person must publish that they hold data, on that person, on their site (example.com/datamatch) and have matched that data. And make that data available to that person or duly authorised agents. Essentially, if you hold personal data, you have to give a copy of that to the person. And it is recursive. No one can collect data on me without my knowing it, because a cottage industry will spring up of people telling me just how much is out there. It will put a significant cost on personal data processing, and force everyone to evaluate the cost - I think the loss of privacy is simple an example of an externality. Adjust the price to its true cost.
      - lsc 14y ago
        >Essentially, if you hold personal data, you have to give a copy of that to the person. I actually think that's a really good idea, and customers ought to demand that be added to privacy policies. Really, I think it's a reasonable law; some sort of "corporate freedom of information act" - If I ask you what data you have on me, you are legally required to respond and to tell me what data you have on me. Now, uh, for me? it would impose some costs (I mean, that's why my privacy policy doesn't include that clause. It'd be work to setup that portal, and liability, too... I mean, what if I miss some personal data? And besides, not one customer has asked for such a portal. Doing work that you /think/ customers want, without any actual customers demanding it? well, let's just say that it only happens after I get all the work that I /know/ I need to do done.) but, I think those costs are reasonable, and maybe even good (for society) 'cause it would cause me (or any service provider) to think long and hard about just how much data they were collecting, and it would add some cost to keeping old data around. Now, those costs would be different, I believe, for advertising-based businesses, as they may claim to 'anonymize' their data... but we've seen over and over again that anonymized data really is not anonymized at all. But yeah, working that part out would be the hard part of writing the law. If the data is easily connected to a real identity, then yeah, you'd want that real identity to be able to get the data... but how do you tell the difference between stuff that really is fairly anonymous, and stuff that isn't? you need someone smarter than me to write that test. But still... if customers immediately started demanding that the privacy policies of service providers included a 'privacy portal' where they could log in and view all the data that the provider has about them? that is really pretty doable. It's work, sure, and it's not going to happen without customer demand, but it's not an impossible amount of work.
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
the whole point of privacy is that society is sometimes wrong. Sorry, that does seem to be the "hiding" - that I should be able to do in my bedroom something that the rest of society deems "wrong" and no one can find out. I cannot agree or support that - you are asking for secrecy. Privacy is not that society does not know, privacy is society does not care. A society that cares if you are gay (and presumably cares so it can stop you, cure you etc etc) is wrong I agree - but hiding your sexuality in secret so society never punishes you is not IMO the solution. Now we are in a position that many people care if you are gay, simply because you are their target market, not the target of their hatred. To minimise the impact of this, should be our goal for new privacy laws - I suggest a requirement to publicise who we are tracking.

by lsc 14y ago

lmm 14y ago

The amount of things we can infer from publicly available information - where you were seen on the public streets, what you've worn when visiting certain groups - is growing immensely. For many, many things we only ever had "privacy through obscurity"; this is going away now and will not be coming back, and trying to make our lives private again is like trying to make bits uncopyable or water not wet. We should be figuring out how to adapt rather than trying to go back to how we were.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Thank you - exactly right. There is no defence, just new forms of trust. To my mind the biggest single defence is for everyone who snoops on me, I should know they are snooping - the act of collecting data should itself become public knowledge. Maybe its not a great defence - but I would welcome any discussion on the topic, because it seems not to be discussed much.
- lmm 14y ago
  What exactly would you require of whom? Everyone who takes a photo, scrapes a website? To what, register their activities in some centralized database? There are lots of approaches that sound like easy solutions until you start thinking about the details of how they would work.
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    Well, where better to debate some of the details:-) I would simply suggest that any company that performs a "data match" - between data held internally and an "internal or external identifier" that can be directly linked to an individual person must publish that they hold data, on that person, on their site (example.com/datamatch) and have matched that data. And make that data available to that person or duly authorised agents. Essentially, if you hold personal data, you have to give a copy of that to the person. And it is recursive. No one can collect data on me without my knowing it, because a cottage industry will spring up of people telling me just how much is out there. It will put a significant cost on personal data processing, and force everyone to evaluate the cost - I think the loss of privacy is simple an example of an externality. Adjust the price to its true cost.
    - lsc 14y ago
      >Essentially, if you hold personal data, you have to give a copy of that to the person. I actually think that's a really good idea, and customers ought to demand that be added to privacy policies. Really, I think it's a reasonable law; some sort of "corporate freedom of information act" - If I ask you what data you have on me, you are legally required to respond and to tell me what data you have on me. Now, uh, for me? it would impose some costs (I mean, that's why my privacy policy doesn't include that clause. It'd be work to setup that portal, and liability, too... I mean, what if I miss some personal data? And besides, not one customer has asked for such a portal. Doing work that you /think/ customers want, without any actual customers demanding it? well, let's just say that it only happens after I get all the work that I /know/ I need to do done.) but, I think those costs are reasonable, and maybe even good (for society) 'cause it would cause me (or any service provider) to think long and hard about just how much data they were collecting, and it would add some cost to keeping old data around. Now, those costs would be different, I believe, for advertising-based businesses, as they may claim to 'anonymize' their data... but we've seen over and over again that anonymized data really is not anonymized at all. But yeah, working that part out would be the hard part of writing the law. If the data is easily connected to a real identity, then yeah, you'd want that real identity to be able to get the data... but how do you tell the difference between stuff that really is fairly anonymous, and stuff that isn't? you need someone smarter than me to write that test. But still... if customers immediately started demanding that the privacy policies of service providers included a 'privacy portal' where they could log in and view all the data that the provider has about them? that is really pretty doable. It's work, sure, and it's not going to happen without customer demand, but it's not an impossible amount of work.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

the whole point of privacy is that society is sometimes wrong. Sorry, that does seem to be the "hiding" - that I should be able to do in my bedroom something that the rest of society deems "wrong" and no one can find out. I cannot agree or support that - you are asking for secrecy. Privacy is not that society does not know, privacy is society does not care. A society that cares if you are gay (and presumably cares so it can stop you, cure you etc etc) is wrong I agree - but hiding your sexuality in secret so society never punishes you is not IMO the solution. Now we are in a position that many people care if you are gay, simply because you are their target market, not the target of their hatred. To minimise the impact of this, should be our goal for new privacy laws - I suggest a requirement to publicise who we are tracking.