6 Reasons To Care About Online Privacy Even If You've Got Nothing To Hide

In our current year of 0003 PS (post-Snowden), privacy is a perennial buzz word, but not everyone places the same value on online anonymity. As recently as the Paris attacks, critics have called into question the commercial availability of privacy features such as encryption. Invariably, these critics resort to an argument that sounds something like: But I'm not a criminal/terrorist/illuminati member, why should I care about online anonymity if I have nothing to hide? To proponents of this argument I'd first like to express my relief and gratitude that you're not a member of the criminal underground. That makes two of us. But there are several compelling, practical reasons even law abiding citizens- perhaps especially law abiding citizens, given we have the most to lose- have a direct vested interest in protecting their online privacy.

1. Corporate Data Mining

Remember all those terms of service agreements you carefully read and signed? Me neither. Even when you don’t explicitly give your consent, private interests can often easily and legally collect or purchase information about you based on your online activities. Many times this is innocent, or even helpful, such as Amazon learning which ‘three wolves howling at the moon’ T-shirt you most like to impress the ladies with so you can be sure to reorder when it gets ripped to pieces in a passionate whirlwind of lust. Other times this tracking of your activity can pose an inconvenience, such as the much dreaded targeted ads and sponsored content mucking up your feeds. But the real danger is not just a waste of time, it’s that information unwillingly or unknowingly gathered about you can be used in decisions that can meaningfully impact your life. How much to charge you for insurance, whether to approve you for a loan, or even whether to offer you a job are all decisions that can lawfully be made based on data gathered about you online. That’s not just an annoying pop-up ad, that’s something that can irrevocably alter the course of your life.

2. Malicious Attacks

While we’re not all high profile targets like ‘Evil Corp’ from USA Network’s Mr. Robot, the possibility of an attack by a malicious, real life ‘fsociety’ is no less concrete. Many services which help protect your anonymity online also aid in protecting you from certain kinds of attacks, such as man in the middle attacks. Just as it sounds, in a man in the middle attack your computer’s in-going and out-going communications are redirected through a malicious third party. Not only does this allow for monitoring your activity, but it’s an excellent foot in the door for injecting malware, viruses, or other protocols directly onto your computer. As just one piece of a robust defense, encryption helps by making it virtually impossible for an attacker to decipher any intercepted data, and much more difficult for them to inject false packets.

3. Limiting Your Audience

Just because you’re doing nothing illegal or that you wouldn’t tell your friends and family about doesn’t mean anyone should be able to know about it. Maybe you want to email a friend the juicy deets, but don’t want your government or employer to know all about that one summer of exploration at camp, or the nitty-gritty of your seven day journey of enlightenment at Burning Man, or that time you inadvertently ended up in the middle of that political rally whose ideas you don’t even agree with. It’s perfectly reasonable to feel comfortable sharing certain information with some people but not with others. We all do it. That’s not having something to hide, that’s being human.

4. Bandwidth Throttling Based on Traffic Type

Many internet service providers (ISPs) like to reduce the speed at which content is delivered to their users in order to artificially reduce their networks’ capacity utilization. Their motivation is simple, all else equal, less capacity utilization means less required investment in infrastructure and more room for paying subscribers. Though the FCC’s Open Internet rules went into effect in June of 2015, it remains to be seen how effectively this will combat throttling. Since that time there have been further alleged cases of ISPs throttling bandwidth depending on the type of a user’s activity, such as throttling video streaming or activities on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Establishing an encrypted connection to a proxy server, as is possible with any number of consumer VPN services, means your ISP cannot actually see the content you are sending and receiving. Thus, while they can potentially still throttle all traffic, they can no longer discriminate based on source or type.

5. The ‘Big Picture’

Personal privacy and the free exchange of information are beautiful things, and tools like encryption help uphold these broad ideals. Like any tools, those that protect online anonymity are neither inherently good nor bad. In the hands of an irresponsible user, they can be abused, much in the same way a chef’s knife or a car can be used to commit crime. This does not make the tools themselves immoral, and personally choosing not to make use of these tools doesn’t make them vanish. Even outlawing them could not do that. It’s hard to image people who are already willing to commit criminal activity having qualms about breaking a law to use encryption, when doing so would make it easier for them to get away with more serious offenses. Banning technologies such as encryption might have some benefits, but it’s vital to remember that these limited gains would come at tremendous cost. Conversely, actively promoting your right to online anonymity helps- in a small but real way- uphold the ideals of personal privacy and freedom of thought, speech and expression that America and many other modern government were founded on.

6. You Just Don't Know...

This is the big kicker- just because what you're doing online is not illegal, taboo, or unethical today, doesn't mean the same will be true tomorrow. You just don't know. Once information is gathered about you and it's on file, it's on file. There is absolutely no way to know ahead of time how that information might ever be used. If, after-the-fact, the government decides your favorite brand of alcohol infused energy drink is unsafe for consumers- we all miss you Four Loco- you don't want to face charges for the possession of a controlled substance because of that last six pack you have left in the fridge that you bought online. If, after-the-fact, a company's model predicts that fans of certain types of music or TV shows are less likely to repay their debts, you don't want to be rejected for that mortgage or student loan because of your search and browsing history. If, after-the-fact, anyone connected to a certain protest movement is placed on a government watch list and you wrote a paper about the movement using research from its website, you don't want to be banned from flying to grandma's house for the holidays. What you're doing today might not be anything to hide, but that doesn't mean it can't be used against you in the future. Maybe you don't think it could happen to you. Not in your city or state or province or country. Not for your race, religion, ethnicity, belief, hobby, interest, job, taste, preference or affiliation. Maybe you're right. Maybe not. You just don't know.