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Trying to control a population is stabbing it with a double-edged sword. Just take political control as an example: At one end, strict laws in places like Singapore have undoubtedly secured its status as the safest city in the world. Be careful selling gum to someone there though, as getting caught doing so could result in a fine of up to 100,000 SGD—such is the price of well-executed state ownership. At the other end, the western world prides itself on being the land of the free, where basically anything can be said and done. Unfortunately, the West's greatest strength, like Singapore, is also its greatest weakness. While the United States may not suffer from, say, the high levels of censorship that countries with authoritarian regimes experience, it is also true that most of them, for their part, do not struggle with extreme relativism in the form of fake news and political cleavage, both serious threats to the world's self-proclaimed greatest democracy.

In the same way that greater collective stability at the cost of reduced personal freedom is a direct consequence of greater political control, it has been suggested that having more control over people's information could lead to safer societies. Biometric data, for example, has been collected and handled by Chinese authorities for some years now as part of their Sharp Eyes mass surveillance program. Similar measures were recently passed in Mexico, where, in an attempt to mitigate extortion scams, phone users will be required to provide their fingerprints, facial features, and voice recordings as a prerequisite for obtaining a phone line. With the advent of technology, what initially seemed like an idea straight out of a novel along the lines of 1984 and Brave New World has sparked real concern about the importance of digital privacy in a time when seven out of every ten Americans use Facebook.

A natural question arises from the above: To what extent is it acceptable to trade privacy for more security? This question assumes that the more control governments and corporations have over privacy preferences and personally identifiable information, the easier it will be for them to protect their user bases. Protect them from whom? some might ask. Should not governments and corporations be feared as much, if not more, than even the most fearsome criminals? Regardless of the purported intentions of regulatory agencies regarding what they plan to do with people's private information, the problem lies not so much in their credibility as in the endless possibilities of wrongdoing that citizens hand them over along with their data.

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Being denied the right to information privacy has implications that affect both the personal and social spheres. On a personal level, digital platforms store seemingly insignificant bits of information related to our online activities on a recurring basis, from casually browsing the Internet to discussing business with a potential employer via email. Assuming no platform is completely trustworthy, we can only imagine what would happen if, in an unfortunate circumstance, that information were to reach a political opponent or a current employer. Faced with this situation, would private data still seem so insignificant?

Even if one has nothing to hide, which is rarely the case in contemporary society, as even such mundane customs as wearing clothes involve hiding the body to some extent, privacy is the fundamental reason that tools like encryption have been around since the time of Caesar. Without strongly encrypted network communication protocols, e.g., HTTPS, third parties would be able to intercept any messages traveling from one computer to another, including bank credentials during online transactions. It is benefits like these, often taken for granted in the Amazon era, that make us realize that the average person does not have to be persecuted by the government to become a privacy advocate—they just need to want hackers not to steal their hard-earned money.

But as terrible as the impact of limited privacy may be on people's daily lives, that is nothing compared to its implications on a broader social scale. Modern developments in the fields of artificial intelligence, big data, computer vision, and the Internet of Things, to name a few, are truly remarkable; however, once they get to the wrong leaders (it is not a question of if, but of when), the sad truth is that they will also pave the way for the dictatorships of the future. The day mass surveillance systems reach their full potential, nothing but goodwill will prevent authorities from censoring and harassing anyone who goes against their own agendas, be it a politician, a journalist, or an ordinary person tweeting their political discontent (God knows if social media will be a thing by then). With the end of privacy, there would also come the end of freedom of association, freedom of choice, and freedom of speech. Ultimately, it would be the end of our humanity.

Everyone should have the right to hide information about themselves (or themselves for that matter). Governments and corporations that attempt to nullify such a fact of life under the guise of safety are nothing short of monsters; in doing so, they are essentially stripping people of what makes them such: freedom. The fact that this new freedom inhabits the digital world does not mean that it should not be given due consideration. On the contrary: there is a call to advocate for information privacy as more and more of our data is handled for purposes that are beyond our knowledge.


With the end of privacy, there would also come the end of freedom of association, freedom of choice, and freedom of speech. Ultimately, it would be the end of our humanity.

Héctor Reyes Manrique

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Héctor Reyes Manrique

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The Fallacy of Less Digital Privacy for More Security