Posted this five months ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument;

Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from who? Surly you want to hide your children from abusers and predators? Don't you want to hide your banking details from con artists and fraudsters? Your identity from identity thieves.. Your location from burglars, your car keys from car thieves or your blood type from some rich mobsters with kidney problems..

we don't know who are any of these things. So we should protect ourselves from all of them, in effect we have everything to hide from someone, and no idea who someone is.

I tend to go into a different direction: "Sure, you don't have anything to hide today. But what about tomorrow? Or next year?"

Did you know that law enforcement and justice can request and will try to gain access to data you share with any company?

"Oh, but I have done nothing wrong."

The definition of "nothing wrong" isn't set in stone. It's always up for interpretation. You might feel you're doing nothing wrong, but that doesn't mean authorities will always see it that way.

Remember, in some countries, authorities use your social media to monitor against tax fraud. [1]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/11/11/tax...

There's always that probability of a change of political or judicial direction towards more invasive measures in your personal life using the data you share with third parties. You can't predict with certainty that in 10 years time you won't be earmarked as a "subversive element" as a result of mass data mining of the same data you happily share on line. Never assume "it won't happen to me."

The "But I've done nothing wrong" response always reminds me of this talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

Exactly. You know inside that you have done nothing wrong, but nobody else knows that. They can only look at the available evidence and if they're talking to you it's because the evidence is spotty.

So, now you're gambling with whether or not the spotty evidence is spotty enough to make you look innocent or guilty. Therefore, everyone has something to hide because the whole truth will not always be evident and some partial truths can make you look guilty (ex. your cell phone location was very close to a murder scene. You didn't kill anyone, you walked by the spot a few minutes before it happened).

That SHOULD be a powerful argument, too. Unfortunately, most people tend to roll their eyes when you start suggesting that the government might use such powers against them in the future.

They ultimately just "trust the government" to do the "right thing" no matter how flawed that thinking is. This is partially the fault of the education system and them not "knowing their history" that well.

It's only when such abuses of privacy happen to them personally that they become ultra-privacy activists. We've seen this even with politicians that fought to expand mass surveillance powers and then did an 180 when they saw those powers were used against them, too (who would've thought?!).

My personal philosophy is that no matter what mobile OS or search engine or email server or VPN subscription or whatever I use, if the federal government really wants to know something about me or my behavior, they will be able to find out.

Therefore, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to make all sorts of trade-offs in the name of privacy. There's not much to gain.

> if the federal government really wants to know something about me or my behavior, they will be able to find out

If you've been specifically targeted by a state actor, you're going to have a much harder time than if your goal is to resist general dragnet surveillance.

> There's not much to gain.

This ignores whether you've been specifically targeted.

If we had incontrovertible evidence of every abuse, every predation, every theft attempt via privileged information, misuse of identity information, every inappropriate property action, et cetera... Now include tools for reversing reversable illegal activities (if not identifying them before they are committed). Add real time knowledge of the location and status of all people. What effect would you expect this shift to have on the expected value of illegal behaviors? How long would such practices last? What if rapid response teams would immediately go into motion to end assaults and other risks to health and well-being?

There are great reasons we maintain privacy in our society's current configuration. A shift can sound like a perfect tool for authoritarians and many stories suggest that result but it might also be a perfect tool for exposing them early and suppressing their rise while facilitating greater safety and efficiency in society. We will certainly have to adjust our societal agreements and expectations.

Even a generally liberal western government would be tempted to extend this sort of monitoring towards "victimless crimes". Either to boost some arbitrary "effectiveness" numbers, or to boost profit from fines.

I think that a society that is too scared to break every little law or regulation even when it doesn't make sense would eventually tend to becoming conformist -and a stagnant, conformist society is worse than one with the rate of serious crimes that the traditional methods of enforcement leave.

I have stopped arguing about it. I just cynically observe the people who keep insisting that they have nothing to hide, and then watch them suffer the consequences of their own decisions.

This approach is one of my biggest annoyances because it's not the same. You're asking for them to give you something but they're not getting anything in return. When people use Facebook/Google etc. they get a service that they end up valuing very highly in return. That common argument of "Give me your phone and PIN" is so pointless because people wouldn't even give that stuff to Facebook if it didn't give them anything back.

We've got to find a better set of arguments that we can use to convince people. I'm very strongly into privacy rights and I'm not convinced by this argument. Why would someone who doesn't care be convinced?

- Post pictures naked ?

- You close the door of the toilets. You do have something to hide (we all know what you're doing. you're hiding anyway)

"I don't need privacy because my actions are questionable, but because your judgment is" (think dictatures, wrong guys at the top of the decision pyramid, 2nd world war ..)

Just change the hypothetical into: "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?" Yes, it's a bit long, but it takes into account your concern of giving data and not receiving anything in return. And Facebook/Insta/Social media in general is very similar to having a newspaper available at your coffee table each day.

Given that plenty of people give their home address and keys to a cleaner (domestic maid service), I really don't think that argument is going to get you anywhere.

I also have a cleaner coming to clean, but I am always home. I would say no to my own question, if other people would say yes, then we can discuss how it's "different" with tech giants.

i wonder how many of those people use nannycams?

> "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?"

... Oh. And BTW. I'll be making some copies of your keys to give to a bunch of others interested in placing adds on your coffee table (or so they claim). I'll also go through all your drawers to see if I can't find any other keys/access cards/... to gain access to your office or your colleages' offices, friends' or family's homes, etc. just so I can provide them with the same adds "service" as I intend to provide you. Of course I don't remind you of any of this. Nor do I tell your colleagues, friends, family, etc. After all. What you don't know will aid me and what they don't know will aid me. ;-)

That is much closer to the digital reality, thanks for expanding on the idea like this.

> "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?"

If we're entering a valid contract under the justice system of our country of residency, why not? Similar services already abound, in particular around people who contract to visit and attend to older citizens.

This is a valid argument, which leads me to the thought that the laws need to be updated. I personally wouldn't be okay with my own premise. I have a person coming over to clean, but I am always home and I can check if I am worried about something.

If that's not too intrusive a question, I would be curious to know about your fears regarding such situation? Many people would consider this a benign thing - after all residential cleaning services is a multi-dozen billion market worldwide, growing at 5+% YoY, and a non-trivial part of that necessarily involves letting cleaners clean without owners' supervision.

Then again I'm asking as a European citizen living in a country with a comprehensive legal system, a functioning police force, cheap insurance policies, so on so forth. Certainly that ecosystem plays a role in our inner fears.

yea its a shame its used so much. i even seen it being used by someone on TED talk :/

im not going to get into any of the better arguments right now but one thing i like to ask when people say they have nothing to hide is "what kind of things are people looking for?"

I think its good to get a handle on what the person knows first before you start throwing out counter arguments. in a lot of cases people don't even know whether they have something to hide or not and are just repeating what they have heard others saying

If they don’t care, ask for their password.

What is more insidious is that by itself some small portions of information are not private. But collectively they are.

Some portions of information seem innocent too like 'how much is in your account' could mean the difference between if someone tries to target me or not. Say I owe 500 bucks and have 10 in the bank and they may not bother. But say something like I have no debt and have a million in the bank and suddenly I am a very attractive target. That is for both 'good' and 'bad' actors.

Something as simple as giving your email to someone can tie you into yet another ad network. Which has already profiled you.

What is the worst of it is, I really do not care if you had the information. I do care if you use my information to mess up my life or harass me endlessly. So my default position is 'sorry I am not telling you that'.

Most people understand that there is a distinction between having nothing to hide from randos on the Internet asking about my life and having nothing to hide from the legal system of my country. Your line of questioning is not an argument for most people.

These randos on the internet are people. And who works in government and/or the justice system? You guessed it! People!

The govermnent is not some sort of abstract infallible entity. It consists of regular people. And giving those people deep access to your private and personal life is going to be abused more than it will help.

Have we already forgotten what disastrous consequences moving toward such a totalitarian government has? Have we already forgotten about the horrors of the second world war and its aftermath?

> These randos on the internet are people. And who works in government and/or the justice system? You guessed it! People!

That is not a persuasive argument to anyone who understands that people working for governments/justice systems are much more keen to be bound by... laws... than randos on the Internet.

> Giving those people deep access to your private and personal life is going to be abused more than it will help.

Yeah, I'll need a pretty convincing citation about that because it sounds like a load of misinformed nonsense to me. At the very least, you ought to segment your argument based on regional zones. As an example, in the EU governments do collect quite a lot of deep information on their citizens (their finance, their health, their skillsets, etc). They can then use that information to give out unemployment insurance, support education, tackle the best part of healthcare costs and so many other things that have a truly positive effect on people.

> Have we already forgotten what disastrous consequences moving toward such a totalitarian government has? Have we already forgotten about the horrors of the second world war and its aftermath?

Wait, is your argument that citizens in the US, EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc. will experience a shift of their government to totalitarian states in their lifetime? If so what are you basing this belief on?

Whether your argument is correct or not doesn't change the fact that it's not an argument worth making to most people. Rather than try to get them to begrudgingly accept that your original argument is a worthy one, it's a better use of energy to just find the argument that works the first time.

> The govermnent is not some sort of abstract infallible entity.

Most people agree it's not infallible, but a lot of people view it as an abstract entity and not just a group of different people.

You could argue that there are some obvious things that should be kept secret, but not what can be tracked on the internet etc for purposes of providing you better recommendations or improving your life in general.

That being said I'm a very private person and I wouldn't want to give out any data, but just playing a devil's advocate here.

I hear you and understand where you are coming from. This is the reason many websites use cookies and many of these cookies may be functional in that sense.

However a grey line starts to emerge when companies use the argument “tracking to make better recommendations and improve your life in general”. This may be innocuous on the company’s part, eg “we just want to make a better recommendation out of the hundreds, maybe thousands or millions of products we have”. And yes it may improve my life in so far as consumer satisfaction is able to momentarily or even permanently do so.

However there is a weight of responsibility here, which other comments also refer to, and this that in totality the privacy cost may actually be so invasive and so easy to aggregate in the wrong hands, and so difficult for individuals to have control of, that “make better recommendations and improve [consumer] life in general” becomes hard to justify.

Instead of those questions, just ask them if they have blinds or curtains on their windows at home.

It's better to show that they already take steps to be private rather than asking privacy-invasive questions. One of those makes you the bad guy, the other shows that they actually do value privacy.

Or the more direct, "Do you shit with the door open?"

This is the most succinct expression I've ever seen of the only counterargument you need.

We don't have curtains, actually. We have some pull-down blinds that are almost always in the up position. And I have to be honest: I only care about walking in front of my windows naked to the extent that it would bother my neighbors. I couldn't care any less. I only ever pull them down to spare my neighbors any embarrassment.

Which is just to say: a lot of privacy talk is mere question-begging. It's assumed we all feel the same privacy-based emotions (and pro-privacy arguments like yours attempt to appeal to those emotions), but I find that I rarely share my interlocutor's intuitions on this topic, so your argument is still ahead of you.

Yeah I have blinds. But not because I am paranoid of peeping toms but because I like to sleep without the sun in my eyes.

I don't really think that argument holds any water though

people are ok with giving away some of their privacy because they believe that companies and governments are trustworthy and that they will not abuse it.

asking them to give you their password isn't the same thing. you are not an "official" person that is bound by any company rules or laws and you could easily spend the rest of the day/week/month going through their emails wreaking havoc if you really wanted to. if a government official or police officer had access to their credit card number there is much less of a chance of them abusing it compared to someone they know or some stranger in the street.

even people that are aware of their data being collected probably know that there isnt someone in a van or an office cubical reading through every email they send/receive. its all just bulk collection and someone only looks at it if you get flagged for some reason.

As seen in a recent comment here, you might add:

6) Let the toilets door open, after all we all know what you're going to do there.

I like to counter the "If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide" argument with...

"If I have done nothing wrong, then no one has the need to take an interest in my personal affairs."

This doesn't strike me as a very compelling response.

If someone is arguing for dragnet surveillance with the idea that it only really impacts the guilty, and you respond by pointing out that you're innocent so there's nothing to gain by surveilling you, you haven't refuted their position at all.

edit I see we're retreading an exchange (between others) from a few months back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23709602

But if someone is Okay with a dragnet approach to find criminals, it also means that they are Okay with the government knowing every little detail of their life.

And I would assume most people have things they would rather other people or government not know about.

Everyone has secrets they want to keep.

Sarcasm ahead

But we don't know that you have done nothing wrong. Why don't we just take a quick peek and we'll leave you alone until we randomly decide to do this pointless exercise again?

I don't mind people seeing me eating a meal in a restaurant. I'd have a problem if someone pulled up a chair and started staring at me. You can't use intensive actions to show how minor ones are objectionable.

And further, as a rule of thumb if someone is dealing in hypotheticals it means they don't have actual proof of harm. You'd never make an argument like this if you could point to Bob Jones and say "X happened to Bob Jones and it could happen to you."

The claim "I have nothing to hide so I don't care," is actually the claim that privacy is not intrinsically valuable.

I think you can absolutely use an intensive action to show that lesser ones are objectionable.

"If privacy is not important in itself, why are you covering your body with underwear and pants? Why don't you put cameras throughout your house, including your bedroom?"

Clearly our actions reveal that we DO think privacy is important in itself. What "I have nothing to hide" really means is "I have not yet been personally affected, so I don't care." It's apathy, not a value statement.

Reminds of me a child getting super close and saying “I’m not touching you.” They could touch you if they wanted or may touch you by mistake which makes it frustrating, it’s a kind of power. I think we need to understand with private knowledge comes power. We can’t trust normal people we don’t know with that power. People who are just working a job. Hell even most people don’t trust the opposite political parties president with power let alone corporations. To limit that we have to move them away and not even give them the chance to abuse it.

Right. And one notices that such people already implicitly value privacy since they talk to their husband or wife or close friend very differently depending upon whether others are present.

Well, I tried using this exact argument on someone, and their reply was "I'm happy to provide all of these, and more, to any law enforcement agency that needs it. I'm not worried about government abusing this, and I don't understand why you do. I'm also not worried about stealing this information, because it simply won't happen to me".

There's no point in arguing with some people. The logic just doesn't work.

This is an important phenomenon that I think is really tricky to tackle. Because, I think your observation is 100% true. But, it also comes off as rude.

But it really is probably the case that most people making general statements to the effect of "I've got nothing to hide" don't actually believe what they are saying, or they haven't fully worked out the implications.

The creepy stuff is when bits of such "knowledge" are taken out of context and used to compile a personal profile of you, for purposes from marketing to content recommendation to social and political engineering. Someone has those partial "facts", but are unable to extract your true motivation for your behaviours and can draw very wrong conclusions.

Exactly. Anyone who says they have nothing to hide, I ask them for their unlocked mobile.

Not really a fair set of questions, since at least (3), (4), and (5) can potentially lead to others accessing/taking my stuff (bank accounts, home, etc.) rather than just knowing about me.

Usually when people tell me that line, I ask - can I see the browsing history on your phone? Usually, it gets the point across.

“can you tell me your email password? I wanna check something in your emails..."

in addition "lets go over to your place i want to have a look around"

you hit the nail on the head.