Has Technology Doomed Privacy?
One of the biggest questions on my mind for the past seven or eight years, and cause for a general chronic uneasiness in my heart, has been the nature of privacy going forward as a result of technological changes. To give you some background, I went to college between 2001-2005. It was only during the final moments of my senior year that YouTube was founded and went live to the public. Practically no cell phones had video recording capability. Google wasn’t monitoring everything you did and had nowhere near the power it does today. The NSA had begun to hit its stride with the surveillance apparatus it constructed in the late 1990’s, going on steroids in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. Most cars didn’t have GPS location tracking.
The past decade has changed all of that. The world of 2014 is radically different in terms of privacy than the world of 2001-2005 when I first moved away from home and starting making my way in life. If you are in a populated area, the odds are good you are being recorded or tracked somewhere, somehow.
The evidence indicates part of this discomfort is cultural. I was, am, and likely always will be an American to my core. The United States is enormous. If you want some 20,000 acre farm out in the middle of nowhere, you can do it. Unless you grew up in a major city such as New York, you probably aren’t used to people being on top of you. You have land; a place you can walk, grow your garden, read under a tree, or build a pool. The natural outgrowth is people became used to the idea of not having others watch them, unlike Japan. Population is so dense in Japan that the Japanese language never evolved a word for “privacy” in the sense that those in the United States or Canada use it. The entire concept is foreign.
This indicates that, inherently, privacy is not an absolute human condition but a by-product of geography that then makes its way into cultural indoctrination. (Theoretically, it could become ingrained in a given population at some point due to natural selection, I suppose, but that seems unlikely given the melting pot genetic background that makes up most American citizens, who lack the ancestral conformity of a nation such as, say, North Korea.)
I find myself inherently uneasy about sharing too much information, which is why even this blog focuses more on ideas than on me, personally. I’m not on Facebook because I don’t want the world to know where I eat every day, where I regularly go on vacation, or when I happened to run into an old friend at the grocery store. Am I doing anything wrong? No. I don’t drink, don’t do drugs, don’t steal money, have never cheated on my taxes, and spend most of my time trying to improve myself, learn about some new topic, generate more cash to fund investments, or hang out with friends and family.
Still, despite nothing to hide, I feel deeply, intrinsically, that if someone were to monitor me, it would be a severe violation of my basic rights. Perhaps it’s the fourth grade social studies lessons on the importance of the IV Amendment of the United States Constitution pertaining to probable cause for search and seizure; how, absent this sense of inherent privacy rights, totalitarianism can grab an easier foothold. Information is power, and a consolidation of personal information would give a central authority too much power relative to the citizenry.
Privacy Isn’t Absolute, Nor Should It Be, But I Can’t Accept Total Abolition
Do I think there are reasonable limits to privacy? Absolutely. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I fall firmly in the same camp as conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on the issue of “civic courage” when it comes to public disclosure laws of political activities to prevent corruption and allow citizens to follow trails of those attempting to influence laws. In a situation like the one he was ruling on in his case, there is a compelling interest in the general public in knowing who is trying to use the force of government to control their behavior. In other scenarios? No. I’ve never run a red light in my life, yet I detest the mere notion of automatic ticket-generating traffic cams that monitor citizens like something out of 1984. To my recollection, I’ve never left a hateful, malicious, or cruel comment on a website, yet I don’t like the idea of site administrators requiring “real name” verification so you can only comment under your actual identity. It just makes me … uneasy.
I can’t tell you if it is rational, or merely an artifact of my upbringing in a nation where privacy was the de facto norm. The evidence indicates it may be a bit of both. Take the idea of the Resident Registration Number in South Korea. You have to have it to identify yourself on the Internet, and your fingerprints are on file with the government tied to the RRN. Things were going along fine until they weren’t – in July of 2011, there was a hacking breach at SK Communications that revealed roughly 70% of citizen ID numbers, which resulted in the country banning sites from using them for any purpose other than payment submission. It’s dangerous to have that kind of information floating out there. I’d go so far as to think the Internet itself should be encrypted and de-centralized. If the United States Government attempted an RRN system here, you might have a civil war on your hands, yet the people of South Korea just accepted it.
I mean, privacy in the United States is so fiercely guarded that when Franklin Roosevelt pushed through Social Security, there was a sizable minority of the country that fought it believing it to be a tracking system prophesied in the Book of Revelation; the so-called “Mark of the Beast” that foretold the coming end-times! It’s a major violation of law to disclose a person’s health information under medical privacy regulations. You can’t record phone conversations unless you disclose the fact beforehand or else you can be charged with wiretapping crimes. In many states, you can’t install hidden cameras when the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, while in some, you can’t broadcast images of them without their consent. Most Americans don’t like people tracking us unless we’re giving up our privacy to play the newest version of Candy Crush or Farmville, in which case millions of folks are willing to blithely hand over the most intimate details about their lives for a few extra chances at beating level 57.
In contrast, many European nations have lesser privacy laws in some areas, yet far superior privacy laws when it comes to Internet usage, including the EU’s “right to be forgotten” regulations, which are now known as the “right to erasure”. Essentially, you can withdraw consent and force a company to delete the information it has on you.
Even if a constitutional right to privacy were explicitly spelled out in an amendment, how would it look? Would it extend to not having your facial recognition features automatically scanned by software when entering a baseball stadium or subway station? Would it be the right to not have your genetic information sequenced without a warrant? Could it even be done if it wasn’t a unilateral global approach involving cross-treaties between multiple nations? Would it give terrorists or political operatives huge advantages over law enforcement, and if so, how far does that need to go before we consider a trade-off acceptable collateral damage?
Without Significant Legal Reforms, Hiding Personal Details Will Become Increasingly Difficult In An Always-Connected World
I don’t have any answers, just this uneasy feeling in my chest. It’s always there, in the back of my mind. What set it off today was an innocuous interview with White Collar star Matt Bomer. He casually mentioned in a special about an upcoming HBO film he made with Julia Roberts that he had been married for the past three years, sending the Hollywood media machine into a tailspin. It was one thing for Janet Jackson to pull it off a quarter-century ago. It was another for Jang Jin-young, one of the highest paid actresses in Asia, to be able to hide her marriage of a few days before her death of stomach cancer given that she performed the ceremony in the United States. For the star of one of the most popular dramas on television to be able to have it hidden for this long, in 2014, while residing almost entirely in New York and Los Angeles is impressive.
As best I can tell, the mental model responsible for his success in this arena has to do with the fact that Matt hid it in plain site. Major magazines like US Weekly regularly feature pictures of his family and three sons out at the playground or going shopping as do some of the biggest gossip sites on the Internet. Sometimes, the best way to conceal something is to put it out there where it doesn’t draw any attention. People merely assumed they weren’t married, and since they were so nonchalant about it, folks ran with their assumptions, never bothering to ask any questions. (This is the reason it is important to always check your assumptions.)
Part of me is relieved that someone so high profile was able to hide something, still. It means we haven’t, yet, crossed the Rubicon. That won’t always be the case absent explicit laws.
How will the world change when people can no longer keep secrets?
Will there be a general acceptance of things previously taboo as people realize they aren’t alone?
Will there be greater crackdowns on minority groups, who can now be more easily tracked, monitored, and exterminated?
Will violent crimes like murder, assault, and rape continue to fall off a cliff like they have for the past 30 years as it becomes more difficult to get away with evil?
Will it make it easier for people in power to commit evil as they can tamper with the alibi of the innocent?
Will global culture commoditize into a single, homogenizing sameness?
I spend my life looking 3-5 years out in the future, and I can’t see anything but fog. I have no idea how this train ends, nor how it reshapes civilization for good or ill. It makes me uneasy. I can’t prepare if I can’t forecast; I can’t profit if I can’t predict based on probabilities. It feels somewhat akin to being on a roller coaster in the dark where you can’t quite see the next big drop.
Reader Comments (22)
Comments are presented chronologically, with replies indented beneath the comments to which they respond.
Grammar Fiend Gary
April 24, 2014
"How will the world change when people can longer keep secrets?"
I think you dropped a "no" in there. Feel free to delete this comment.
Matt
April 25, 2014
I wouldn't say that Technology has doomed privacy, but that the events of the past decade show that people don't actually value privacy that much. Sure, there are times where people will be outraged at a particular event (like the NSA scandal) but after a few weeks, its back to normal. Just like a lot of other events, the average person just doesn't care after a while. Events like Syria and Ukraine pop up in the public discussion for a while when something big is going on, then nobody cares anymore after that even though the problems don't get fixed.
Many people are willing to trade away privacy for a little more convenience. And an intrusion of privacy is what we are having to pay in order to use a lot of the new technology. Not very many people ever read the privacy agreements upon signing up for a service. Part of this problem is probably due to legal protections, and part of it is due to framing issues. I haven't looked into the EU regulations very much, but they seem like a good step to protecting privacy. Another way to help is to change the framing of terms of service to influence individual decisions. Just like organ donation (opt-in systems have much lower participation rates than opt-out systems), changing to an opt-in system for signing away privacy rights might cause people to be more aware of what they're giving away.
One big part of the problem in my view is that data is a crucial part of the economics of the internet. Many internet business models rely on advertising for revenues and keep usage free (much like Google, Facebook, etc.). It is much easier to get people to pay in the form of decreased privacy rights than in the form of cash. In terms of the cost/benefit to society, the benefits of collecting all this data are upfront and visible, while the costs are delayed into the future and are nebulous/hard to quantify. Which makes the entire privacy debate a difficult subject.
Technology companies have a vested interest in data collection from private citizens because that's how their business models work. And while it might be easy to mock people thinking that social security numbers are equivalent to the mark of the beast, I can certainly understand how this can be a disturbing issue. Giving up privacy rights is increasingly becoming necessary if you want to participate in the global economy, and this is a problem.
In order to be able to use many technology services, you must agree to their privacy terms. And while it seems fair to me that they should be compensated for providing you a valuable service for which they must incur costs, I think there is a compelling public interest in ensuring that people can opt out and pay in alternative ways. I can see a compelling arguments about the social benefits of privacy, including things you mentioned like potential for abuse of information by governments, discrimination against minority groups, and the like. Other arguments include a black-swan type argument that the centralization of data makes our lives convenient, but at the cost of potentially massive breaches further down the road (much like the recent data hackings at Target, and a lot of other retail chains). We don't fully internalize the loss of privacy because the benefits are immediate and visible while the costs are distant and less visible.
It would be very inaccurate to think that the Japanese don't care about privacy. There may be no word for privacy in Japan, but that is only because privacy is rare. And because it is rare, it is that much more valuable to them than to us in the U.S. In contrast to the American culture which values individualism, Japanese culture values the collective. Thus, individualism is repressed and there is a high pressure to conform to society. Escapism, privacy, and anonymity are thus important in Japan to give people an outlet for individual expression. These themes are often reflected in Japanese manga, anime, and other artwork. It is also partially why Facebook is not very popular in Japan.
Would the abolition of privacy in America lead to the same problems that Japan has? You could argue that it would not, due to the fact that we have less of an honor culture and highly value individualism. But I think privacy and individualism are strongly connected. Humans are social creatures, and in a public setting, there is always a pressure to conform. The only way to relieve this pressure is either to a) conform, b) isolate yourself from the pressure, or c) control the social trends. Conforming is undesirable if we want to have a vibrant and diverse society that values innovation. Controlling the system is not very feasible unless you are on top. And you can't really get to the top of society unless you are a leader and are willing to disagree with the status quo (implying individualism). Which leaves the second option. We need to be able to isolate ourselves from society to a certain degree in order to maintain our individuality, and thus our sanity. Thus, I would argue that privacy is a fundamental human need. While the degree of expectation of privacy may be cultural, humans inherrently need the ability to be alone and express themselves without the constraints of society imposing on them. I don't think anybody can be permanently in the spotlight of society without serious psychological harm. So while part of our view on privacy is cultural, I think the notion of privacy exists at some level in every culture. It would be a mistake to assume that it is only a cultural construct.
Azia
May 3, 2014
Replying to Matt
It's not that people do not value their privacy, it's that it is not adequately protected, or where protections exist they are not enforced or corporations simply evade the law, much as they do when it comes to paying taxes, polluting, abusing employees, and so on.
A major issue with privacy agreements that are signed with corporations is that they are one way, they are hardly legitimate as the user, often the one paying, has zero input. I think that ownership of your own information and your ability to sell it for however much you want may well solve or mostly solve this problem.
FratMan
April 26, 2014
To me, the more interesting question is: What if you do have something to hide, but the thing you wish hidden is a personality defect rather than criminal activity?
For instance, take the current brouhaha with Clippers owner Donald Sterling. He's had some racially questionable incidents in the past, but for the moment, let's pretend that he had a crystal-clean reputation up until the recent video footage came out of him saying some unquestionably despicable things about African-Americans.
But here's the dilemma: He was having a private conversation, and clearly had no idea that he was being taped. Is that fair game for us to judge him, and since the NBA is investigating him, presumably punish him for that private conversation?
Racism and homophobia are the current characteristics that it is typical for society to deplore, but I could imagine milder forms of where this might be relevant. Apparently, at the old Anheuser-Busch back when the team owned the Cardinals, it was impossible to get promoted if you were an "outed" Cubs fan. People with Cubs sympathies seriously went to great lengths to hide that fact. If modern technology existed then, would it be fair to capture a rising executive at A-B talking to his dad on the phone about the stupid politics at his company and how he has to feign interest in the Cardinals to grease the wheels of career advancement, and then hold that information against him come promotion time?
Although the prevalence varies from person to person, my guess is that most people have some social, political, or economic views that they do not wish to share publicly because they know society considers them abhorrent but they believe them regardless. They don't "own" these views because the level of conviction they attach to the views isn't offset by the social ostracization that would accompany making those views public.
A lot of people don't seem to mind when these people run into trouble because it is seen as the discovery of truth wherein the person gets the just deserts. But I'm not so sure about that, because the implicit assumption there is that we are entitled to know your negative personal beliefs that you wish to keep private.
Is everything bad someone does behind the scenes fair game? Or should you be allowed to manage the parts of yourself that you know are repulsive and choose to prevent from affecting your public identity? If you have a character defect that you can't rise above, should you be "outted" for it?
Isn't there a difference between going on TV to say "All Catholics are..." compared to being taped talking to a friend on a park bench saying "All Catholics are"? And, if so, how should that difference be taken into account in determining the consequences?
Andrew
April 26, 2014
Replying to FratMan
Do you know if that kid that went to prison a couple years ago for saying that joke in his living room while playing XBOX got a trial yet?
Did he die? He was supposedly getting raped repeatedly last I heard I think (?).
(PRO TIP: Tell your kids to watch their mouths when in the vicinity of a microphone, 50-100ft or so (?). Beloved SWAT might kick down the door, machine guns in hand, and they'll be taken. Apparently without trial...meaning they will die there without getting a chance to voice a case.)
God bless that kid (and I'm not even all that religious...).
TheSplash
May 1, 2014
Replying to Andrew
Are you talking about this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/06/29/texas-teen-facing-eight-years-after-violent-league-of-legends-threat/
If so looks like he may get a trial in July.
Connelly Barnes
April 26, 2014
I expect ever-increasing amounts of data on human behavior will allow companies to data mine humans until we can all be economically replaced by AIs. I see the privacy thing as being a bit of a red herring since I expect we will mostly all willingly merge with the machines and the digital. Already I find Facebook and Google pretty convenient...
I certainly miss the privacy of the late 90s and early 2000s, and I sympathize with the civil libertarian view, but I'm just not sure how it is technologically feasible going forward.
http://connellytech.blogspot.com/2012/08/data-mining-singularity.html
Joshua Kennon
April 27, 2014
Replying to Connelly Barnes
You think so? I predict there will be a substantial religious or philosophical movement arise, either outgrowing from existing religions or manifesting by itself, in which a significant minority of humanity refuses to permit cybernetics.
Paradoxically, I imagine people will tolerate biological upgrades through gene therapy and stem cells, which may have much the same effect yet hold none of the objections.
Given human bias, I think a world like the films Limitless or Gattaca is far more likely than a world like the game Deus Ex.
Adam
April 27, 2014
Replying to Joshua Kennon
We'll probably end up with bits of all of them in some form we haven't yet imagined. I would assume that some things will be easier with biological upgrades and others through machines. We already see this on a rudimentary level. We accept cochlear implants for the hearing imparied and bionic eyes are beginning to restore sight to the blind. We put titanium rods in for bones and machines to regulate our hearts. We're part machines this moment but we're so used to it we don't think of it that way. It's all science fiction not long ago.
It will be interesting to see where we get in our lifetime.
Phil
April 29, 2014
Replying to Joshua Kennon
Joshua, just discovered your site today. Love it. Props for the Gattaca reference. Outstanding movie (rent it people) and I have to agree that is where we are likely headed vs. Deus Ex (great game, though).
Joshua Kennon
April 30, 2014
Replying to Phil
Welcome to the site =)
Azia
May 3, 2014
Replying to Joshua Kennon
It seems to me that all the crisis points facing civilization in the next few years: the energy crisis, the growing food crisis, the water crisis, the climate crises, and a number of other resource crises, and of course the economic crises of debt and poverty, will amount to a perfect storm of problems and defeat civilization as we know it. Recently this has got a lot of attention mostly under the label "Will Capitalism Destroy Civilization?"
Connelly Barnes
May 8, 2014
Replying to Joshua Kennon
I expect it will be more and more convenient to analyze and create information while online. In sci-fi this typically leads to the situation of the 'exocortex' (e.g. Stross's Accelerando), where you have lots of computing devices attached to you which help track all your memories, thoughts, and work. Eventually it will be easier to simply put more and more of one's personality online. I can't see what force of economics will suddenly demand that we reverse automation and ephemeralization.
Certainly there will be negative counter-reactions to this.
Azia
May 3, 2014
There is technology available to interfer with privacy invading schemes. Don't use a wireless router, don't use satellite internet, use a radio frequency jammer to prevent people around you from using cell phones; don't have conversations in public places, have them in private or in noisy locations where evesdropping is impossible; if you want to get really serious you can use a high powered magnetic field to disable cell phones and prevent people from taking photos of you, or merely aim a very powerful light at said cellphones, video cameras, etc. which would severely damage the CCD element making continued video recording impossible. As for online, don't put any real information in a social media site (in fact this is dangerous as people have been sued for things they have said or posted online), participate openly as little as possible.
When it comes to technology I'm mostly concerned about how fascist governments and corporations can alter history (apparently DDT wasn't so bad and the Cold War was never a threat to human survival), create facts from fiction (take your pick of the conspiracy theories), show support where none exists (think tanks and lobbies), and access information from people without their permission (in fact there is a growing movement toward individuals selling their private information as a means to control this).
Andrew
May 3, 2014
I think I was thinking of another one. There's been several lately I think I got mixed up somewhere. I think ... it was this guy rapping or something.
If every rapper was taken seriously they would all be in prison for terrorist threats. A lot of musicians from many genres actually talk about illegal things in their songs. I thought music was exempt from this type of stuff...
"Terrorist" ... I'm glad that word is starting to be seen for the lie and political tool that it always was. It looks like more and more people are becoming educated to what's going on which gives me hope. I think it's becoming harder to keep the public dumbed down and obedient due to the freedom of the Internet. Well lol illegally monitored freedom anyway (which could turn ugly I guess).
Andrew
May 9, 2014
Look up "mind reading" on YouTube.
If it's public knowledge it means it's been out for decades already ... and actually it's also now primitive. There is probably MUCH more powerful things out there.
And we thought being recorded by our cameras 24/7 was bad...
Andrew
May 29, 2014
Replying to Andrew
Just to clarify I wasn't talking about psychics. It's scientists explaining the physical process of the machines doing it. It's widely known it's already done with various scanners already.
I'm thinking about the unrestricted budget-less exponential advancement of this.
FratMan
July 27, 2015
When we learn information about someone that was intended to be conveyed in a private setting but technology intervenes and transmits the information to the general public, how should the information be regarded? On one hand, it may represent the True self and is thus the most accurate representation of someone's true views on the matter, or, as courts say, it my be the fruit of a poisonous tree and should be disregarded.
Joshua Kennon
July 27, 2015
Replying to FratMan
Seeing this comment just reminded me you sent me a text I need to respond to sometime. Sorry about letting it slip my mind - I got sidetracked.
Re: Your question. I was thinking about this the other day when Aaron and I went running, turning it over again and again. To expect others not to react to what is the most honest, unfiltered version of the person is not reasonable. If you know they hate you because you're [insert characteristic here], or are secretly plotting to marry into the family and steal money, or want to stage a coup at the non-profit, the fact it should have been a private conversation doesn't matter much even if it should because you can't forget what you know.
On the other hand, should a recording - say, a conversation in the bedroom between a married couple where the person needs to be able to able to be unreasonable and say whatever he or she is feeling even if not rational and not how they feel most of the time - be treated differently? There should be a certain expectation of privacy inside one's own home or office.
What complicates it for me is I tend to hold myself to a higher standard than anybody else does. If I have a thought that is unreasonable, I try to figure out why I'm feeling that way - what is really behind it? - so I can address the root cause. If I can fix it, I fix it. If I can't, I accept it or bide time until I can fix it. I'm very, very careful about what comes out of my mouth, even in private, because your words are your destiny. They influence your psychology, your mood. They can be misunderstood. I prefer written form, which, of course, you know. I'll sit down and draft after draft, work my way through my thought process, refining and attacking the idea.
I also adapted a rule from a case study Aaron brought into the files years ago: Tim Gunn, the former Dean at Parsons School of Design, who experienced success and fortune late in life after his character was already forged. That rule: Never criticize someone for something they cannot change or over which they have no control. It is extraordinary how that one, simple, non-negotiable guideline causes you to be more effective, waste less time on useless things, and avoid offending people.
Gunn wrote this rule, and others, in a book of life lessons. His big two: 1.) Make it work, and 2.) The world owes you nothing.
I should go dig through my notes and post a case study on that sometime this week ... the fact that he was one of the only men in the entire fashion and publishing worlds capable of publicly criticizing Anna Wintour for her out-of-control behavior because nobody would dare turn on him given how beloved he is by everyone who has ever worked with him. She couldn't take him down because he has so many stores of goodwill built up in every imaginable corner of the supply chain it's crazy.
Even his lessons about how to forge through in your career when you're too scared to take the step, making yourself do it anyway. He's talked about how when he went back to teach, he would throw up in the parking lot every single day the first week, and shake to the point he'd have to brace himself against a wall because he was so nervous. He made himself walk in every day, regardless.
Anyway, back to the question: I'm not sure. No matter what should be right in the abstract, I don't think you can put the genie back in the bottle. The human mind doesn't work that way so it's more of an academic distinction without a difference with no practical consequences.
Preston Nelson
July 29, 2015
Replying to FratMan
Courts do not disregard...from the sixth circuit http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/15a0157p-06.pdf
Assume all microphones are live...
And the poisonous tree is a criminal doctrine meant to punish bad behavior by the police not keep out information.
FratMan
July 29, 2015
Replying to Preston Nelson
Right, I was taking the principle and applying it to a different situation.
Preston Nelson
July 29, 2015
Replying to FratMan
I believe I understand your point.
I was saying that nothing stops the knowledge from existing. You cannot give it back. You may be prevented from using it because disclosing how you got it hurts you. But once you have it you can use the answer to work backwards to find a safe way of having acquired it.
The real question is not how you acquired it but is it accurate?