IS PRIVACY IN ALL OUR INTERESTS? Exploring the privacy spectrum. 🬦🬉🬓 █ █ 🭥🭓🬓 █ █ █ █ ▋ █ ▕▏█ 🮉▋ █ █ 🭥🭓 🮉▋ ▋ 🬵🬚▂▂▂▂ █ ▋ 🮉▋ ▋ ▂▂▆▆🭅▉🮅🮅🮅🮅🮅🮅🭃▉▉🭟▆▆▆▆ █ ▋🬼 ▋▋ ▋🬼 ▗🬃🭃▉🮅🮅🮅🮅🮕🮕🬓 🬓 ━ 🬁🭖▉🬼 █ 🭖▉▋ ▋▋ ▋▋ 🭇▉🭡🮅🮅🮅🮅🮕🮕▆▆▆▆▉▉▉🭎🬓 🮕🮕🭔▉🮕🮕🮕🮕🬏 █ 🭥🭓▋ ▋▋ 🭖▉▉▉🭃▉▉▉▉🭐 🭢🬓 ▋🭃▉🭅▉🭔▉▉🭎🭔▉🮕🮕🬚🬋🬓 🭔▉▉▉█ █ 🮉█ ▋ 🭢 🮉▉▉▉▉🬎🬌🬄 🭅▉▉▉ ▋▉▉▋ ▉▉🭔▉▉▉▉▉▂▂▋ 🮉█ 🭗 █ 🭅▉ ▉🬴🭗 ▆▆🭃▉▉▉█ ▉▉▋ ▉▉▋ 🬸▉🮅🮅🬄 🮉🭖▉🮂🮂🮕🮕🬓 ▉▉🭗 🭥🭓🭥🭓▂▂ 🭥🭓▉▉▉🭐 ▋▉▉🬲🬭▉▉ 🬏🭊🭂▉▉🭗 🭃▉▉▉▉▉━ 🮉▉▉ 🬄 🬏 ▋🮂🮂🭖▉🮕🮕▂▂🮗🮗▉▉▆▆🬸▉▉▉▉🭎▉🭟🮅🮅🬀 🭇🭊🭂🬄 🭅▉🮅🮅🮕🮕 ▋🬓 █ 🮉🬄 🮉🬓 🮕🮕🭥🭓🬏 🬼 🮕🮕🮂🮂🮂🮂🭖▉🬼 🭇 🬏🭅▉🮂🮂 ▉🭡🮕🮕 🮉▉🭎 🬦🭗 🬁 🬄 ▉🭎 🭢🭔▉▉🭎▆▆▆▆🮕🮕🬲🬭▂▂🮕🮕▉🭟🮅🮅🬀 🮉🮂🮂🬀 🮉▉▉ 🮉▋ ▋🬓 🬁🮂🮂🮂🮂🮅🮅🮂🮂🮅🮅🮅🮅🭗 🬦🬉 ▋🬼 🮉▋ 🬉▉🭐 ▋ ▋▋ 🮉▋ 🭖▉🬼 🮕🮕🬄 ▋▋ 🮉▋ 🬉▉🭐 🭊🭂 ▋▋ 🮉▋ 🭥🭓🬼 🮕🮕🭗 🮉▋ 🮉▋ 🭢🭥🭓🬼 🭇🭗 🮉▋ The eye unites us all. Privacy - it's something which we always explicitly want, but often implicitly renounce. Back in the time of personal websites and forums, displaying your real name was avoided. There was always the fear of the Internet and real life worlds colliding. Everyone knew once a phone number or street address was put on the Internet, it was there forever, and could be used for anything by anyone. On the other hand, who gives out their information to strangers on the street? The Internet was more of a digital playground rather than the dual of reality we find ourselves in today. From then until now, for one reason or another, this degradation of the anonym- ous-self has reduced the freedom of the mind. I remember people used to talk about anything and everything under the sun, no matter how taboo or controvers- ial, without any fear of consequence. Self-empowerment from knowledge has turned into self-empowerment from popularity. We used to deal in communities, now we deal in platforms and services. The tribalistic, wild west of the World Wide Web is mostly gone. The inspiration of this analytical opinion piece comes from realizing that if we gave up our Internet privacy, maybe we have gained something else? And what would we further gain if we gave up other privacies? Then it dawned on me that maybe even the term privacy is harmful because of its multiple meanings, causing possible confusion and self-destruction. TheFreeDictionary.com: 1. The quality or condition of being secluded from the presence or view of others 2. The state of being free from public attention or unsanctioned intrusion Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis in "The Right to Privacy", 1890: The right to be left alone. Yael Onn, et al., Privacy in the Digital Environment, 2005: The right to privacy is our right to keep a domain around us, which includes all those things that are part of us, such as our body, home, property, thoughts, feelings, secrets and identity. The right to privacy gives us the ability to choose which parts in this domain can be accessed by others, and to control the extent, manner and timing of the use of those parts we choose to disclose. With some time, these definitions have made me realize there is an evolutionary quality to privacy. In some sense, the definitions can be applied to any organ- ism. An organism's survival rate could be directly related to whether it has a lot or no interaction with its peers. Good examples of animals which survive better being left alone are bears, skunks, leopards, and moles. Clearly privacy for these animals is important, as other animals could capitalize on knowing what they are doing. This is an indicator to me that privacy may have an evolut- ional influence. The other side of the spectrum is organisms which require to know information about all its peers, such as any herd animals. If a herd knows one of its own is being attacked, the rest will all attack or all flee at once. If a herd becomes infected with a disease, there is a good chance a certain per- cent will live through or be immune to it. A large part of it may die, but if a large enough portion survives, it can grow large again over time and become even stronger. Where do humans fit? Well we know empirically humans are social animals. Our survival is best in groups. So if we had maximum privacy, how would that affect us? Everyone would be left alone. No one would know who anyone is (maximum anon- ymity). No one can be trusted. Meaningful relationships would be difficult to form. Our populations would be smaller. Exchanges between two people would never be fair because of the lack of transparency. It's as if privacy is sought after in societies where our peers cannot be trusted. A maximum privacy oriented soci- ety after these thoughts sounds detrimental! What if we banished all privacy? Then there would be complete transparency. Peo- ple could not hide information. The intentions of powerful individuals would be made clear and true. Genuine, trustworthy people would rise through the social ranks. At the same time, everyone's vulnerabilites would be exposed. Your sex- ual preferences and likes made public. Unknown relationships now known. Military and trade secrets couldn't be made secret. Who's to say though these are ulti- mately bad? In the end a no-privacy society would encourage true, transparent, fair, mutual, relationships. It's not hard to imagine that this could have a ma- ssive positive impact on the human race over thousands of years. These only work though if everyone mutually agrees or is forced to an extreme. The appeal of a scenario too is highly dependent on the psychology of a person. If we consider people in a position of power, maximum privacy is preferred, and when people have no power, no privacy for everyone should be preferred. When pri- vacy is maximized it means people with power can easily hide the imbalance and surprise potential opponents. No privacy means no one can hide anything, and pressure to change things can be focused. People can vote for the correct polit- icians who truly have their interests. Today we have privacy which is somewhere inbetween. The privacy which exists today could be said to protect our individ- ual selves from potential adversarial peers. Since some peers abuse others in some way, more privacy actually impowers both the victim and abuser. Only when all knowledge is known by both parties can abuse be avoided. The cost here is individuals may not know how their past actions will be interpreted in the fut- ure, either good or bad, selfish or selfless, etc. I would hope in such future scenarios though that people would be able to explain themselves and adjust their behaviors accordingly such that they are now seen as trustworthy again. How does no privacy translate to the Internet? I would think it's more or less the same thing, but enables it all much more easily. Digital information is much easier to share to large quantities of humans. I think for this reason, the advocacy around privacy is more prevalent in the digital realm. The real issue people have is while they are being subject to no privacy, the powers that be are not. This creates an enormous power imbalance. Today we are seeing that individuals want the opposite: they want large organizations (companies) to be fully transparent, while having maximum privacy themselves. I think this could also be problematic though over time. How can you have workers have maximum privacy but a company have none? It just doesn't make sense. The company will have some amount of privacy. There has been a lot of thoughts written up to this point. As I write I find there are so many potential thought paths to wonder. This last bit is about what I feel objectively is the right approach. Considering we are all people who want to live healthy, fulfilling lives, it should make sense that we need to help each other. In order to help each other in the most effective ways, we must be fully transparent and open to know what we can do for them, and who we need to "put in line" or "straighten out". The only way for such a system to work though is either through global cooperation or force (by government), and I think the majority, myself included, think this is either not feasible or vul- nerable to corruption. The only alternative seems to be what we already do in real life today but immitate it on the Internet. We need a system for trust-giving, not trust-taking. Information sharing is distinct and relationship-based; not local or global. Has there been a tech- nology which enables these ideas? Some that I can think of are IRC, email, and instant messengers of the old days like MSN. People need to request to connect; no one can see your contact list (just like no one knows who you know in real life unless you tell them one by one); even something as simple as your email needs to make it to them before any actions can be taken. Compared to today's standards, these technologies, when used correctly, highly respected your pri- vacy. But can we do better? Of course we can! Messaging services could be so much more granular in the information which is sent. People could request phone numbers, addresses, or even things like the name of a pet. Instead of chat history being permanent, you could set each relationship with someone to have messages auto-delete after a certain period of time - even instantly after a reply. Our current digital communication systems could be doing so much more to mimic our well developed methods in real life! Let's see it!