Fundamental questions arise on whether we truly require privacy. One might question the necessity of privacy, thinking, “Why would someone like me need to hide something? Am I a criminal or a celebrity?”. However, there are genuine reasons why anyone should be entitled to confidentiality, regardless of their status. Privacy is a fundamental right and a matter of personal liberty. As privacy activists assert, it’s about ”liberty versus control”. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy.
I really don’t like to use the word “hide” in this case, as it does imply something bad is going on. I have plenty to protect against misuse, and one of the easiest forms of protection is not making things public.
It’s not because I can’t be trusted, it’s because so many others can’t be trusted with my data.
The “nothing to hide” term has always felt weird to me. It implies you are doing something wrong, which assumes the person wanting to look is right.
I prefer “It’s dangerous to be right when the government is wrong” instead.
Not to mention, I prefer to not be part of the post-sale monetization revenue stream. Or be constantly bombarded by ads. Or to have my PII or other sensitive information leaked all over the place because basically all companies are absolute shit at infosec at some point in time, in one way or another.
Yeah, you can literally type in anyone’s email address and find a good 2-5 passwords they’ve used. Nothing on the internet is safe or ever will be, unfortunately. Almost every single huge corporation has lost tons of data on its users, which can lead anyone to figure out way more information than they should about someone.