<story><title>Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”</title><url>https://write.privacytools.io/freddy/why-privacy-matters-even-if-you-have-nothing-to-hide</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bad_alloc</author><text>Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask:&lt;p&gt;1) Where were you last night?&lt;p&gt;2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt?&lt;p&gt;3) What is your Debit Card PIN&amp;#x2F;account password&amp;#x2F;...&lt;p&gt;4) What is your address? Your families address?&lt;p&gt;5) Can I see your key?&lt;p&gt;And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward and inappropriate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cortic</author><text>Posted this five months ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument;&lt;p&gt;Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from who? Surly you want to hide your children from abusers and predators? Don&amp;#x27;t you want to hide your banking details from con artists and fraudsters? Your identity from identity thieves.. Your location from burglars, your car keys from car thieves or your blood type from some rich mobsters with kidney problems..&lt;p&gt;we don&amp;#x27;t know who are any of these things. So we should protect ourselves from all of them, in effect we have everything to hide from someone, and no idea who someone is.</text></comment>
<story><title>Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”</title><url>https://write.privacytools.io/freddy/why-privacy-matters-even-if-you-have-nothing-to-hide</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bad_alloc</author><text>Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask:&lt;p&gt;1) Where were you last night?&lt;p&gt;2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt?&lt;p&gt;3) What is your Debit Card PIN&amp;#x2F;account password&amp;#x2F;...&lt;p&gt;4) What is your address? Your families address?&lt;p&gt;5) Can I see your key?&lt;p&gt;And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward and inappropriate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sumtechguy</author><text>What is more insidious is that by itself some small portions of information are not private.  But collectively they are.&lt;p&gt;Some portions of information &lt;i&gt;seem&lt;/i&gt; innocent too like &amp;#x27;how much is in your account&amp;#x27; could mean the difference between if someone tries to target me or not.  Say I owe 500 bucks and have 10 in the bank and they may not bother.  But say something like I have no debt and have a million in the bank and suddenly I am a very attractive target.  That is for both &amp;#x27;good&amp;#x27; and &amp;#x27;bad&amp;#x27; actors.&lt;p&gt;Something as simple as giving your email to someone can tie you into yet another ad network.  Which has already profiled you.&lt;p&gt;What is the worst of it is, I really do not care if you had the information.  I do care if you use my information to mess up my life or harass me endlessly.  So my default position is &amp;#x27;sorry I am not telling you that&amp;#x27;.</text></comment>