Secrecy and Privacy are not the same thing

Posted January 14th, 2014 at 11:38 pm by Matt

I just watched an interesting video:

It is about the NSA betraying the world’s trust and it got me thinking: I’m not sure people understand the difference between secrecy and privacy. It seems that with the Snowden revelations in the news we hear this common acceptance of being monitored because “I have nothing to hide.”

For most of us this is probably the case – we aren’t doing something in secret that is illegal. We do not have anything to hide. But that’s not privacy. Privacy is not publishing conversations with friends – not because you are planning something mischievous, but because it’s a private conversation and nobody else’s business.

Now, I happen to not be a murderer, but I’d still prefer to keep some of my pictures, conversations, receipts, et cetera private. On a scale from hiding to publishing everything I like to live I’m the middle – I call that privacy. It’s something I use with my own discretion.

Perhaps another way to explain the acceptance-of-being-monitored lies in the digital nature of this monitoring. When we send an email, visit a website, make a phone call, or swipe a credit card – we are not going to see the monitoring happen – that will happen on servers and over data connections somewhere far away – out of sight and out of mind.

Now imagine that very same monitoring happening in front of you. Imagine someone photocopying every piece of mail in front of you before you send it or someone listening in on your calls (while heavy breathing, audibly on the line). Or, imagine if you bought a security system from your home and someone from the company had to come over and setup a special pin just for the police – so they could always get in your home. Or better yet, imagine a small computer you had to wear from a lanyard on your neck which has a camera and a microphone. It’ll record and snap photos of everything you do throughout the day – but it’ll only send the data to the police or feds if you say keywords like ‘bomb’ or ‘murder’ – would you sign up to wear this?

It seems to me that – when represented physically – we would all have a bigger problem with this type of monitoring – this invasion of privacy. Yet, this is exactly what is happening today and I’m sick of hearing people say it’s okay because, “I have nothing to hide.” If people really feel this way – then I dare them to start publishing everything about their day online – in explicit detail.

You can be pro-privacy and have nothing to hide.

I worry these sorts of privacy intrusions are going to get much worse before they get better. We’ve already had underwear and shoe bombers. If the next genius who tries to blow up a plane decides to do so via shoving C4 up his butt we might all need a colonoscopy before we board our next flight. Maybe that’d be a big enough pain in the ass (hehehe) that things would change.