My Reflection for Week 2 - Kris

This week we were introduced to arguments against and for privacy. A big part of this was government surveillance on civilians. The main argument for surveillance was it was for national security, and could monitor terrorists. The crux of this argument was the idea that good citizens had “nothing to hide”, where the only people who had something worth hiding must be criminals.

Compelling on the surface, arguing that you have nothing to hide inherently creates a quite binary display of the world. Initially, this means that those with “nothing to hide” can consent to the collection of possibly quite sensitive information without any idea of the intended use. Even if the information is not used at all, there is still the possibility of a data breach, and now your personal privacy is under massive scrutiny. Privacy becomes more than sensitive information, it becomes power that is taken for you, and can be abused.

This was one of my main takeaways, because of how precious and sensitive the collection of data can really be. Privacy allows the practice of certain ideas like free speech, where you are certain that you can speak without punishment. In hand with this, privacy is important because it allows a society to grow, and critique itself.  An absence of privacy will make people feel like they can be watched at any time, causing not only a degree of paranoia, but halting the growth of that society.