Why privacy matters?
We are living in the digital age in which there is an unparalleled ability to collect information about people, whether through the social media or through electronic surveillance by the security agencies. Some people proclaim that they have nothing to hide as they are not engaging in any criminal activities, so they don’t worry about intrusions on their privacy. However, there are some things that even the most open individual would want to hide. Majority of attempts to comprehend privacy do so by attempting to pinpoint its essence — the core characteristics or the common denominator that chains together the various things associated with privacy.
However, privacy is too complex to be reduced to a single essence. It is comprised of different things. For example, intrusion on privacy can happen by the disclosure of someone’s deepest secrets. It can also be invaded if someone is watched upon, even though no secrets are released. Blackmail and the improper use of someone’s data constitutes another form of intrusion upon privacy. Privacy can also be invaded if the government amasses an extensive dossier about someone. Thus, when confronted with the myriad of privacy problems, the nothing-to-hide argument has nothing to offer because it has a narrow understanding of privacy…
Source:
Solove, D. J. (2011). Why privacy matters even if you have ‘nothing to hide’. Chronicle of Higher Education, 15.
