Introduction
I wanted to explain the structure of freedom, and why part of what constitutes a free society is the right to privacy. One of the most difficult parts of educating people on privacy is the confusion about what it actually is. People often confuse privacy with secrecy, privacy with anonymity, and privacy with security. I want to distinguish between multiple related terms and show the structure of how, in order to have a truly free society, you need the right to privacy.
What is privacy?
I want to be very clear about what privacy actually is and is not. Privacy is not hiding everything about yourself. Hiding things is secrecy. Privacy is not hiding who you are. Hiding who you are is anonymity. Privacy is not protecting your information. Protecting your information is security.
Privacy is the ability to choose what you share. That gives us our first clue about the structure of a free society. Secrecy relies on privacy, because if you can’t choose what you share then you cannot keep secrets.
An example of secrecy would be hiding how much you make at your job. An example of privacy is choosing to exercise that secrecy. In the moments between someone asking you how much you make and telling them you don’t feel comfortable sharing that, you take a moment to decide whether or not you want (or consent) to telling them. That is privacy.
Why the distinction?
The distinction between privacy and secrecy is incredibly important for making arguments about privacy. People may say “I have the ability to choose what I share, because I am able to choose your level of privacy if I want to.” What they really mean is that they can choose your level of secrecy. You don’t choose to be under surveillance, but you can choose to protect yourself from surveillance, not by hiding everything you do but by eliminating the things that are tracking you in the first place.
In reality, many people cannot choose the same level of secrecy. Privacy is eroded in the background, and many people don’t realize how far surveillance really goes. Becoming secretive is not the solution, because that is the same as eliminating your free speech in the face of being persecuted. This is our second clue about the structure of a free society, because free speech relies on both privacy and secrecy.
What is security?
Security is, simply, measures taken to protect something. Encryption is an an example of security, because it is used to protect sensitive data from unwanted intrusion. I want to make a clear distinction between security and safety. Security protects you before an intrusion occurs, whereas safety protects you after an intrusion occurs.
An example of safety is a surveillance camera. A surveillance camera cannot stop a crime from occurring, but it can record evidence to convict a criminal after the fact. On the other hand, strong locks are an example of security, because they protect a store from being broken into before a theft takes place.
I deliberately call them surveillance cameras instead of security cameras, because safety is different from security. When the news talks about security measures, often times they are really referring to safety measures. Safety measures are often privacy invasive, because they usually require a level of data retention to be effective.
Security protects against unwanted intrusion. If there is unwanted intrusion on data, that means it was shared without consent. Because of that, if there is no security, there is no privacy either. That gives us our third clue about a free society. A free society does not need safety, it needs security, and privacy is not possible without security.
What is anonymity?
Anonymity means hiding your identity. Because it directly relies on hiding something, it’s immediately obvious that anonymity relies on secrecy. Anonymity is the best defense against a corrupt government, because it allows us to speak up against corruption without fear of persecution. Even with perfect secrecy, we ourselves can still be convicted by exercising our right to privacy. This is the final piece we need to see what a free society relies on, because without a way to combat corruption, there is no way to be free.
What is freedom?
We’ve finally arrived at the final section, which puts together the pieces to show what is necessary for a free society. While this is only part of what freedom requires, it is not a part that can be ignored.
This pyramid of freedom shows the dependencies for each element. Security is the foundation that everything else is built on. Privacy relies on security to prevent unwanted violation of consent. Secrecy relies on privacy to prevent sharing without consent. Anonymity relies on secrecy to hide your identity. Finally, freedom relies on anonymity to fight against corruption.
You may notice safety is not on there. While safety can be good, it often violates some aspect of the pyramid. It isn’t necessary for a free society. In fact, safety doesn’t even need security. Surveillance cameras are breached all the time, but that doesn’t change their purpose or effectiveness.
Conclusion
Privacy is essential for a free society, but it isn’t the only essential liberty. Security is the foundation that privacy is built on, and even that is eroded away by conflating security with safety. Knowing the distinctions and relationships between the various elements is incredibly useful when speaking up about privacy, because even if you can defend every “nothing to hide” argument, people still tend to have a fundamental misunderstanding about what privacy really is.
Lack-of-AI Notice
I’ve been burned before, so I always try to mention that none of my content is AI generated. It isn’t even AI assisted. Just because something is comprehensive and well-structured does not make it AI generated. Every word I write is my own. Thank you for your understanding.
This was my first time testing an easier way for me to create posts by first drafting them in Iotas. I had a couple hiccups such as forgetting to insert the image and forgetting to double newline paragraphs, but it worked alright.
Seems incompatible with Capitalism. ‘Surveillance-capitalism’ is a huge problem, and no other system in history have gathered so much private data about its citizens. Everything we do on the internet, or in some closed ecosystem, is indirectly monitored and the market system knows all about us, our activities, our social groupings, opinions etc and this knowledge is not used for our benefit. Further, as long as we might influence the system, or as long as we might have digital data ‘belonging’ to someone else, capitalism will step in and take control of our ‘privacy’. We and privacy are a threat to that system…
Absence of capitalism would not stop privacy infringement. Its centralized powers that want to retain their power that leads to surveillance to monitor groups that might be a threat to unseat them.
Only thing that’s really changed compared to the past is technology that is available to authorities in power. Its always going to be a constant battle to retain privacy from governments that want to know everything even if monetization was snapped away. Privacy infringement is just another tool to be used by governments.
Seems incompatible with Capitalism ‘Surveillance-capitalism’
These are not equal. I am a capitalist. I run several, bonafide, tax paying businesses. I like working. I like money. Money can be used to acquire goods and services. I enjoy goods and services. We start businesses in order to generate capital. Even if you start a non-profit of any size, you still need to pay employees, pay utilities, etc. So you have to generate capital some how. Capitalism isn’t a bad thing, unless you are an anarchist or something, I guess. Business is what grows and maintains the economy.
Where I deviate is rampant, unbridled, capitalism…or a better word would be greed. There is really only one way to nix rampant, unbridled, capitalistic greed, and that is to stop consuming. Corporate America and indeed governments know. Once you stop the money, the wheels start falling off. So as long as there are consumers willing to pay exorbitant prices for goods and services, there will be rampant, unbridled, capitalistic greed.
As far as surveillance capitalism, well yes. That’s bad. We go to great lengths to mitigate surveillance, I know I do. Thing is tho, even if you’ve eradicated say…Google from your network, and even tho you’ve never had a Google anything account, they’re still making bank off of you. Google has it’s fingers in a multitude of pies and the chances that you will use one of their services during your internet travels, are probably quite high. That ship sailed on September 4, 1998, and it’s not coming back.
There is no change without pain.
