Is Privacy Overrated? An Analysis on Privacy and The Conditions of Sharing our Lives Digitally.

Would one trade all of privacy in exchange for a complete sense of security? As technology advances and digital environments create a layer of invisible systems and connections on our physical environment, it brings a promise of more agility, more closeness, more convenience, and eventually more security.

What brings security can be two things, one the reduction of criminal behavior, and the other, is surveillance, making sure to track the status quo and impede any criminal attempt. To respond to this question, first it’s needed to observe what privacy is, and what’s the currency and price paid, in effort to live a safer life, on physical and digital ecosystems.

As internet surfaced, people were unsure and felt unsafe in sharing their own full names, personal information, addresses and more. People connected through alias and profiles that couldn’t directly link to oneself in the physical reality. As we’ve advanced, people nowadays share not only their names and address, but in some cases every detail of their lives and behavioral aspects.

More recently, as one of the areas of study of Digital Anthropology, Daniel Miller talks on the importance of the work anthropologists who are focused on issues of privacy and exposure, bringing attention to human aspects and behavior and to identify and analyze modifications that happen through these promises.

Society has constantly been under surveillance in some sort, in residence or commercial buildings, without adding the digital sphere. This surveillance has extrapolated and invaded the access to information, sometimes without people’s consent. One would consider a fair trade for safety, others don’t. The question is, have they chosen to?

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What is Privacy?

According to Cambridge dictionary’s definition, privacy is “someone’s right to keep their personal matters and relationships secret.”. This definition brings strong concepts, navigating across law, definitions of individual, collective and, intimacy. One might not think on all the concepts that surround the complexity called privacy. Often is misjudged and overlooked, without even realizing that is being executed or forfeited. In addition to understand what is privacy, one must consider, is it needed though? Is privacy part of the human nature and should be sacred, or was a social concept, to mask the not so proud behaviors that one might have.

In the past, what was considered private was what was done out of the public view, away from others and without judgment. Most often, houses were private and would protect privacy. Different families that before would share common spaces in huts and habitations, looked to have different houses. As humanity advanced, they added separate rooms, building physical walls, to protect what they want to do individually or in secret. Those barriers were solid protections for privacy.

The digital environment broke all those barriers. As technology advanced, digital spaces took over and presented another ethereal environment that people could navigate, interact, and execute. It also brought exposition. Humanity was more vulnerable and more reachable in different aspects, not only by having someone coming over to their houses. They realized that they could have someone entering their digital spaces, opening their doors, and revealing their secrets, invading their privacy.

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Sharing is Caring

When we have someone coming into our houses, we allow them to see how and where we live, our habits and customs. In essence, we share with them pieces of our lives, or if we choose not to, we keep them in secret. There is a notion of choice in sharing. Although there are things you share, without choosing or even perceiving you’re sharing. Even though not sharing your income for instance, one might make assumptions of how much another earns based on the aspects of the house and lifestyle. There’s way more than just the income one can see on other’s household.

Why humans share though? Why do they like to do so? Marshal McLuhan already presented the concept, of how one can be as Narcissus and his love for his self-image with technology. - Humans are fascinated for whatever extensions of themselves in other materials that not their own. - McLuhan describes. When one shares, not only gives access, but gives opportunity so others can imprint one’s own in other selves, often seeking approval and appraisal.

The main aspect though is humans like to share and like to control whatever is being said and seen about them. Using the house as example, one wouldn’t like to have someone else coming over to do a tour, seeing every room if one is away. Although, they would explicit it jumps in all chances possible to show their own houses and all the details and stories of memoirs and souvenirs to other visitors. Humans want to show their accomplishments and their life details. They have been doing it and nowadays increased with social media. One shares through mobile a series of details to people that not necessarily they would invite to their own houses.

           

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Securing the House

Protecting one’s house, loved ones and oneself, is usually a priority for every human being, in different aspects. When interviewed, all 8 adults, considered this a priority, although not all of them were willing to give up their privacy in exchange of a complete sense of security. Only 3 of them said right away they would do the tradeoff. When specifically asked if they would let cameras to be implemented for surveillance inside the house and monitored, for security reasons only, with all confidentiality applicable, all hesitated. They found the notion of having people looking over was weird and invasive.

Surveillance is the key. People don’t want to feel observed, watched, and monitored. The notion of having others looking to your intimacy is frightening. One might even assume that there’s nothing one wouldn’t do privately that wouldn’t do in front of others. The reality though is, others might care, and by the way, who are those others? When given names and specific clarifications on who are the observers, then one would have proper setting to judge if certain aspects one would share or not.

The social norms usually make us not willing to share everything. One might not want their boss to hear every detail of complaint. Generally, a picture of one intoxicated on the cousin’s wedding is not what one would want for a recruiter, or even one’s significant other’s family to see. The combination of what and to whom, is what make the factors in which one will stablish their own criteria of shareable and private.

It is debatable on how surveillance brings security. If not security itself, at least it brings the sense of security. Knowing there’s someone monitoring, and guarding public spaces, gives a notion of safety. One just doesn’t want to be a piece of the observation. Often people judge that others may cause harm, not acknowledging they are the others to someone else.

           

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Why it Matters?

When we think about security is usually the direct relation of not being exposed to danger, and eventually to be a victim of a criminal activity. Although, security can be interpreted way more than this. To wake up and to have the pure certainty you can be yourself, just as you are, everywhere, anytime, just by existing is the purest sense of security. There are people who still struggle to feel safe being who they are, fearing for themselves, making their lives private, to not be hurt.

One wouldn’t invite someone over their house if they don’t agree to something they are going to see in one’s lifestyle. That’s why people not only choose, but also cannot share their privacy. Society have always judged behaviors that could be performed on a private or public sphere. Liberty has never been fully, if considered social and political norms. Those norms are created to protect. The question is, to protect whom?

On the other hand, is surveillance a complete invasion and judgment of one’s private life and honor? Is a criminal, a pedophile entitled to privacy, knowing what they are going to do with it? Should those groups be monitored, to make sure no further harm is done? One might think yes. The question is, who draw the line? In this matter, is obvious that those criminals that have shown to expose innocent people to harm should be punished and monitored, being hard to defend that this is not the case. The key point here is the control and the organizations that are responsible for doing so.

             

Diving in the Digital Sea

Parental surveillance to some extent, is considered a normal type of surveillance. One should monitor to protect their children from the external harm. Henry Jenkins states that “Adults historically could not monitor what children did down by the playground, what they talked about when they went to school, what they said to each other at the mall, or what they did in their dates, but Facebook opens up all of these aspects…” When considered the need of protecting their children, the parents interviewed, agreed, and defended surveillance.

Social media as one of the creations of technology brought this new landscape and opportunity so people could few closer to each other. Also, by Jenkins: “…young people continue to use social media today as a way to connect to some kind of larger community beyond their schools and local communities.” It gives people a far broader universe of experiences and people to share and to have a feeling of belonging.

This is clear when we think of participatory culture, where constantly the elaboration of the culture and behavior, along with self-identification, acceptance and even allies to fight against big struggles, relies in connecting to other people in the digital environment. Does it matter though, to know all details of others’ lives? Why though every single movement is tracked and traced and tagged by the providers of such digital environments?

Regardless of one’s opinion, the reality is that capitalism dictates most of world’s circumstances and social norms. Out of capitalism humanity extract every single drop of resource from nature and makes it a commodity. As the digital overlay is built upon our physical world, same rules apply.

Every new technology, whether is good or not, has its toll. Should it though? Shoshana Zuboff defines, “Eventually companies began to explain these violations as the necessary quid pro quo for “free” internet services. Privacy, they said, was the price one must pay for the abundant rewards of information, connection, and other digital goods when, where, and how you want them.” She describes the specific, and not always explicit, collection of data, information from people, using a company’s services, to be used to make more profit.

When we look to applications most used on Google’s App Store and Apple’s App Store, we see from games to social networks, to utilities apps, all serving different purposes for leisure or convenience. The top app on Google’s app store is Temu, a shopping app. When using it, besides your personal information, the app has the right to also collect photos, financial info, and other IDs.

The second most used app is Instagram, heavily used by youth to build those communities. When looked at the list of data collection that is made, it gets much bigger. Even on apps games, on Apple’s app store that have optional purchases, as Roblox, one of the most downloadable games, they collect and use personal information, search history, location, and other user content. Why would a game collect the location and search history from users?

It is observed though that only the U.S. small businesses, 33.2 million, accounting for 99.9% of businesses, benefit from that data collection for advertising purposes. Considering that this reflect more than 46% of the U.S. employees, the very own usage is eventually supporting their own income. That clear U.S. centric perspective can be argued across the globe. This exists only due to the systemic capitalism profiting from every aspect of human behavior.

Although, when analyzing third world nation, people’s problems tend to be different than having their privacy invaded. They struggle to bring food to their houses, to earn a living wage and to survive in a much more dangerous nation. Sharing their data, isn’t their concern number one. They would willingly share those to get access to a Wi-Fi, and to be able to connect to others. We see how those countries tend to be much less critic of big tech companies and how this is not perceived as a huge issue. They have far worse things to worry about.

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Is All About Control

It all eventually comes down to control. Who has it, and what for? To be in control is to choose or to be aware of the decisions made in your behalf. The main argument from the interviewers on whether they would allow the cameras and monitoring of inside their houses, was that they wouldn’t know who is watching and when. The same logic can be applied to users’ digital data.

The problem is people don’t know who is accessing them, and that is the key aspect to define if they would share something. In addition to what people want to share, they want more control on what they don’t want to share. The right to be forgotten, as detailed by Zuboff, it is far from being a worldwide right. In opposition, should every human have access to those rights? Should a criminal after jail time, should they have the right to have their criminal act forgotten?

Who then, in a globalized and open world, with several nations should have the control, of the digital overlay that covers our physical environment? If capitalism prevails and companies control it, there’s no human interest but the pursuit of profit. Those can be translated into the behavioral modifications we observe on the internet. Nations having their elections being impacted, fake news to serve a selfish purpose and obvious propaganda to promote capitalism. If governments control it, one will argue that would be the reasonable solution. Although, is this government just? Is it democratic? Is it tolerable and servicing people at their wellbeing, or according to their beliefs?

There’s no easy solution to decide who should control privacy in the digital environment. Although Skinner has stated “We cannot choose a way in life which there’s no control. We can only change the controlling conditions”. To change how one behave and is presented digitally is under one’s control. People might choose not to share, not to expose themselves, and not to reveal their intimacy.

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On the topic, would one trade privacy for a sense of security, we return to the ambiguous response of, it depends. Depends on one’s values, social economic circumstance, and individuality. It is rather difficult to see the circumstances of privacy under one optic only. There’s more to safety than the sense of security. Curiously, the parents interviewed were the ones not giving up their privacy, while the ones with no children, didn’t hesitate in agreeing to that.

On another aspect, being forced to surveillance, depending on the combination of one’s personal life to the nation they live, might be the very aspect that doesn’t bring security to them. In addition, giving every single human the right to be forgotten shouldn’t be a collective right, as unfortunate as is, it would mean the lack of security to others and innocent people.

As technology continues to progress, it is important though to keep a constant surveillance on the ones controlling it. The combination of who and what, should be key factors on defining and sharing privacy. More than having a direct control, it is important to have the knowledge, the causes, and consequences.

On the new technologies, Diane Michelfelder clarifies “…these changes conceivably threaten the existence of a primary goods, (…) including social freedom, individual autonomy and personal privacy.” and suggests that “…public needs to be more involved with technology and not merely as thoughtful consumers, but active participant in its design.” This idea is an opportunity to be perceived on being able to make the changes we want to see. Choosing to be actively participative and wanting to make changes though, only we have the control.

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References

Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. New York, Public Affairs, 2019

Jenkins, Henry. Ito, Mizuko. Boyd, Danah. Participatory Culture in a Networked Era, Cambridge, Polity, 2016.

Miller, Daniel. Horst, Heather. Digital Anthropology. London, Bloomsbury, 2012.

Higgs, Eric. Light, Andrew. Strong, David. Technology and The Good Life? Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Mcluhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. São Paulo, Cultrix,1964.

Skinner, B.F. About Behaviorism. New York, Vintage Books. 1974.