I sometimes wonder is ‘Privacy’ is over rated, for myself I do not care what firms know about me, or rather I allow parts of me to be seen on the Web, Re the items I buy on line, mainly through Amazon, Curry’s etc. any marketing material that is presented, deleted straight away. So my question is: Is privacy over rated?
Alexander Sturing
I do care what companies know about me… Because more often than not, the interest of the company contradicts with the interest of me as a customer.
I don’t want my health insurance to purchase a database with data from my smart scale, smart refrigerator, motion tracker and supermarket app. When combining this data, you may start to consider me as a health-risk…
And it’s not just about that, it’s about the automated decision making, it may not always be based on the correct information, no matter how much data points you add…
To me, Edward Snowden worded it perfectly by saying “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
d9d9d9
I’d say that most people who are aware of the risks care about privacy. IMO being in control of what info is known about me and by whom is crucial. Seeing how much organisations know about people is quite scary. Not only because I don’t like that they know so much about me (maybe know me better than I know myself and can thereby predict my behaviour) but also because mistakes happen.
Identity theft, exposing sensitive info to hackers following a data breach, or the data may be shared with an organisation that I don’t like the data should be shared with.
E.g. I don’t want that Facebook has access to all my private messages since I have almost no control over who reads those messages and what happens with them. I therefore use FOSS E2E apps as much as possible.
Chris Roberts
I really do recommend you read Elisavet’s article found here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/right-personal-data-protection-privacy-elisavet-dravalou/?articleId=6650329536716247040 .
For me, data protection regulations are only trying to restore balance to our world. If someone tells me they will deliver a product or service of any type then I expect them to do that. If they take my details to help provision of those products and services I don’t expect them to sell the data, mis-share it or use it in any other way I don’t expect. This is simply good old fashioned manners.
Regarding Privacy, I expect to be left alone and its often the case that failures of data protection often lead to privacy being being infringed.
Elisavet D.
It is a personal choice, but unfortunately nowadays that most of us live in democratic societies, take privacy for granted. The right to privacy “creates a private bubble” around the individual that does not allow others to intervene. That is violated with the current practices of big companies, and most of the times we are not even aware of it.
Note: When we talk about the GDPR, we are not talking about privacy but about the right to data protection. The right to privacy is the right to be left alone, while the right to data protection is about processing personal data under certain principles, in order to protect other fundamental rights and freedoms. Read also: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/right-personal-data-protection-privacy-elisavet-dravalou/?articleId=6650329536716247040