“Why should I care?”, is a question often asked to me when I talk about privacy. There are plenty of reasons to preserve your privacy, but before that I must present some definitions:

Privacy, anonymity, security, and keeping secrets are seperate concepts from each other. “Keeping secrets” can be defined as hiding an embarrassing situation or event from public knowledge.

What I’ll be talking about in this post will be privacy. Before continuing, I’ll also say that these concepts can be quite related to each other. If one aims to achieve privacy, one must aim for security aswell.

Privacy, in my definitions: Personal data. This includes what you search up on the internet, or a video that you watched. Its literal definition is hiding something (like a conversation only between you and somebody else) personal.

Security: The security I mention is in the internet context. A very simple example would be making a long, complex password for an account.

Anonymity: The complete or near complete unavailability of any personally identifiable information; having a near zero identity or digital footprint. [1]

Now I’ll get into the main topic:

Why Privacy

1. Privacy is a Human Right

Nobody deserves to be subjected to abuse towards one’s privacy, family, home, or honour.

It is our responsibilities to protect our rights.

2. Personal Data: the Renewing Goldmine of the Modern Age

Many corporations are probably profitting off of you using their services right now. Do not think “Eh, whatever, they can go ahead”, for this gained money can and will be used against you in the future.

For example, some big corporations, that profit heavily off of user data, donate to political figures like Donald Trump [2]. A company should have no business in politics, surely?

Or Google, who has just recently broken their promise not to use AI (Artificial Intelligence) for developing weapons and surveillance tools [3].

And Amazon, overworking their employees, and ignoring any wellbeing or financial security for them [4]

And these are a mere few examples, quite explanative of what’s going on in the brave new world.

3. “I Have Nothing to Hide”

This topic has been covered many times; I’ll keep it brief. If you want a proper article covering this topic specifically I’ll provide a link [4.5].

In short, with this way of thinking one is usually unaware that they do break the law [4.7].

And it also assumes trust in the Government entity, and Governments, are often untrustworthy [5] [6]

4. “Can’t be Arsed”

Saying this, the issue gets personal:

It’s laziness. The selfish nature of man might cause someone to entertain these thoughts; However, turning a blind eye to the evil in the world, would be at the very least, unethical, or perhaps, against your religion’s values [7] [8].

I highly condemn anyone that willingly and knowingly supports, and takes no action against entities that hurt, and exploit people.

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This is a rough translation of the Turkish article I published. At first I didn't really intend to write this in English.

• Privacy