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Technology Review: Privacy Requires Security, Not Abstinence
Article by Simson Garfinkel on “Protecting an inalienable right in the age of Facebook,” i.e., privacy.
Privacy matters, as Garfinkel eloquently argues:
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Privacy matters. Data privacy protects us from electronic crimes of opportunity–identity theft, stalking, even little crimes like spam. Privacy gives us the right to meet and speak confidentially with others–a right that’s crucial for democracy, which requires places for political ideas to grow and mature. Absolute privacy, also known as solitude, gives us to space to grow as individuals. Who could learn to write, draw, or otherwise create if every action, step, and misstep were captured, immortalized, and evaluated? And the ability to conduct transactions in privacy protects us from both legal and illegal discrimination.
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But Garfinkel argues that it’s not the case that merely “opting out” of “some aspects of modern society” (i.e., abstinence) should be the way to secure it. You should have a right to privacy, and still be able to participate in online activity or electronic/ digital transactions.
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Now, however, abstinence no longer guarantees privacy.
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In this environment, the real problem is not that your information is out there; it’s that it’s not protected from misuse. In other words, privacy problems are increasingly the result of poor security practices.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.