
Researchers wrestle with a privacy problem - cryoshon
http://www.nature.com/news/researchers-wrestle-with-a-privacy-problem-1.18396
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ClintEhrlich
This is an interesting dilemma, but it's only one minute example of the very
real toll that "privacy" inflicts on society. Reasonable people can disagree
about whether the benefits outweigh the costs, but we should talk more openly
about the downsides instead of reflexively treating privacy as sacrosanct.

The value that we know as "privacy" is far more arbitrary and historically
contingent than most of us realize. In societies where resource scarcity
forces people to share bedrooms, the acceptable spheres of privacy are
radically different from the ones that modern American life inculcates.

Are other social boundaries equally flexible? And if so, should we test them?

Perhaps so. There is an intrinsic tension between the pursuit of privacy and
the hacker ethos that information wants to be free. By definition, privacy is
an act of sacrifice: a denial of information to other nodes in the network
that forms civilization. Our laws already recognize narrow circumstances in
which the costs of that sacrifice outweigh the benefits, such as when there is
probable cause to believe that an individual is abusing his or her right to
privacy in order to undertake criminal activity.

Yet there is a social taboo attached to radical opposition to privacy. For
example, an integrated network of ubiquitous surveillance could offer
incredible benefits to humanity. Violent crime could be virtually eradicated.
People could be held accountable for anti-social behaviors, like littering or
cutting off other drivers. Our entire society could operate more efficiently
in innumerable ways. But open advocacy of a surveillance state is only a few
degrees away from fascism according to our modern political mores.

In the example from the story, it's clear that our collective welfare could be
increased by analyzing reams of restricted data. Are we willing to
intentionally tolerate greater human suffering in order to preserve the
amorphous right to privacy?

I contend that it's more useful to look at the discrete harms that flow from
disclosure of specific information. How could people be harmed? What kinds of
safeguards could be put in place to prevent that concrete harm?

Those are useful questions, which allow us to make informed choices instead of
switching off our brains and discussing "privacy" in the abstract.

~~~
jacobolus
In practice, mass surveillance is a great tool for corruption and control
(e.g. blackmail, market manipulation, following ex-lovers, trumping up
charges, crafting threats of violence), because the people placed in positions
of power have insufficient checks to prevent them from abusing their access
for personal benefit or for cementing corporate / government institutional
authority. Ubiquitous electronic surveillance makes many types of
authoritarian abuse much cheaper, and thus changes the possible scope of
control.

The same folks who are in favor of unlimited surveillance of the public tend
to be opposed to public access to their own back-room decisionmaking process,
and in favor of censoring embarrassing information in the name of “security”
interests.

The “hacker ethos that information wants to be free” is going to run up hard
against majoritarian attempts to scapegoat, shame, change, or destroy the
different or weird. The life in a small village full of nosy neighbors which
you mention was normal in the past was also a life of social conformity and
harsh punishment of nonconformists. There’s no a priori reason to believe it
would be different in a higher-tech society.

“Violent crime could be virtually eradicated”, except in the case of police
corruption, which is in many places endemic, and which ubiquitous surveillance
makes only more alluring.

~~~
ClintEhrlich
That's a fair description of the existing political coalitions, but that
doesn't mean we have exhausted the range of approaches to these competing
interests. From a systems engineering perspective, radical transparency can
simultaneously increase government power and accountability. Government
privacy (e.g., via state-secrets laws) is just a special case of the problems
that occur when we restrict access to data.

Right now, we seem trapped in the worst of all worlds. The government engages
in mass surveillance, so a rogue actor within the state could exploit the
accumulated data for the unlawful purposes that you mentioned. And private
corporations have access to almost as much information, with equal
opportunities to abuse it but fewer democratic checks on their power. At the
same time, we forgo virtually all of the potential societal benefits of data
aggregation.

If surveillance is justified to prevent terrorism (and I realize that most
here would dispute that), why is it not appropriate to use the same data to
protect people from risks that claim thousands more lives every year?

I don't think that ubiquitous surveillance necessarily makes police corruption
more alluring. One of the most recent policy responses to police misconduct
has been the nationwide push for body cameras on individual officers, which is
itself a form of surveillance. But it's one that obviously increases
accountability, so it doesn't have all of the usual stigmas.

When placed within a proper governing structure, I see no intrinsic reason
that other forms of surveillance could not be enlisted for the same purpose.
Wouldn't it be better if we had actual surveillance video of what happened in
the Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown cases? Do you believe that constantly
being monitored in that fashion would increase police abuses of power?

In a broader sense, most of the responses to my comment illustrate the very
phenomenon that I'm describing: i.e., an instinctive defense of "privacy" in
the abstract instead of a detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of
increasing transparency in specific circumstances.

I'm not faulting the authors. After all, I have raised this issue in a very
broad sense, and so it's only natural that they would reply in the same
fashion. But the way that we seem to be talking past one another illustrates
how difficult it is to have meaningful discussions about "privacy."

If I could make three major points, they would be:

1\. _The need to acknowledge the futility of restricting access to certain
forms of data_

Most privacy advocates cite benefits that do not correspond with the facts.
For example, the government already has the power to tail individuals in
public without a warrant and to watch everywhere that they go. Thus, a rogue
operative committed to malfeasance has the ability to compromise the privacy
of his target. We will never eliminate that power.

The question is, given its existence, would there be benefits to a more
comprehensive surveillance system? More specifically, would the marginal
benefits of broadening the system outweigh the attendant costs? In my opinion,
there is a real debate to be had.

That is especially true in modern America, where we have essentially delegated
unlimited surveillance powers to the government, subject only to legal
restrictions on the purposes for which the collected information can be
employed. Any actor willing to flout the law in order to pursue coercive goals
will be able to summarily defeat the obstacles intended to deny access to the
current fruits of state surveillance.

If anything, providing the NSA and other members of the intelligence community
a monopoly on access to this information seems to increase the risks of
misuse, by making it easier for a modern day J. Edgar Hoover to seize power by
exploiting the asymmetry between his access to information and that of his
foes within the government. I would be more comfortable in a society in which
the state transparently employed the data it collects for worthwhile ends
instead of pretending that it only uses it for narrow purposes like counter-
terrorism.

2\. _Not all data is created equal_ When we talk about privacy, people
naturally begin framing the debate in Orwellian terms. Isn't it possible for
us to approach this topic with more nuance?

For example, if we allowed the government to know which books we are reading
(something the NSA already knows...), then political activism could be
directly compromised, and the benefits would be limited. The same is not true
of expanding public surveillance on city streets or highways, to give one
example.

The problem with "privacy" in the abstract is that it simultaneously
encompasses legitimate concerns and ones that cannot withstand scrutiny. Why
is access to our medical information so privileged? Do we want to subsidize
the livelihood of people with medical problems by artificially eliminating the
ability of employers or insurance companies to take into account all of the
available information?

The answer might well be yes! I certainly benefit from that policy judgment.
But I'm not sure that it's the correct one, and I wish that we could enjoy an
open debate about whether the gains in aggregate economic efficiency would
outweigh the costs to individuals. At minimum, shouldn't we explore
alternatives like increasing social welfare payments for medically
disadvantaged individuals while simultaneously allowing information about
their medical histories to improve the accuracy of public and private
decision-making? Maybe that approach wouldn't work, but I have not even heard
it discussed.

3\. _Are we utilitarians or deontologists?_ One of the major dividing lines in
these discussions is an implicit disagreement over the appropriate moral
calculus.

I default to consequentialism, so in my mind the foreseeable harms from
criminality are equivalent to the potential for police abuse. Yet most people
process the two in very different ways emotionally.

My well-being is threatened much more directly by criminal gangs than it is by
an oppressive state. Only a few months ago, I nearly lost my life when I was
attacked in an alley by two thugs.

Should I be forced to be a martyr for privacy when increased surveillance
could have deterred their actions?

