That's immaterial, frankly. The fact is that there's a growing ocean of data out there, collected intentionally, unintentionally, and as a side-effect of other

That's immaterial, frankly. The fact is that there's a growing ocean of data out there, collected intentionally, unintentionally, and as a side-effect of other activities. More and more the difference between "public" and "not public" in the future will be a matter of processing, not of existence. Imagine the maximal capability if computing were infinite and free. Every piece of data that was vaguely public (and remember that things like purchasing history is not necessarily always private) could be cataloged and collated together. Imagine if every picture you've ever been in could be pulled up by anyone on a whim, and then fleshed out with metadata as appropriate. Everything from that selfie you posted to facebook when you were 12 to your car in the background of someone else's picture on the street just last week. We will lose a lot of privacy just through things like this. Strangers will be able to track our lives and our histories just through the careful application of computing power. As computers get more powerful that capability will merely increase. It'll be possible to guess fairly accurately whether you are single or in a relationship, how much money you make a year, and so on just by observing things like a handful of pictures and collection of various other metadata, much of which is already out there. Think about that in the context of someone who suddenly becomes famous, for example, such as a movie star or a candidate for elected office. If all it takes is pressing a single button to collect an enormous amount of information on someone's history. Now imagine all that data in the hands of people as callous and malicious as political opposition groups or tabloid reporters.