[webmobdev]

> I have my entire life in my phone...

And that is precisely why you need control of your device, and not hand it over to some third-party, especially a corporate who has a vested interest to make as much money as possible from you, with the very data that you seek to protect! Would you really even be happy if some other third-party, like your government, took over this role of acting as your device's protectorate and let them decide on locking / controlling your device to "protect" you?

This argument of "it's for your own good, because people are stupid" is quite weak even if we ignore how this so called "high security" offered by locking down hasn't prevented new jailbreaking techniques to keep surfacing. If you understand security concepts and attack surfaces, then you do know there are technical ways to lock down a device and still give complete control over this to the user.

Apple today has the ability to remote delete and wipe out all your personal data and lock you out of your device. There are no laws or regulations to prevent this. How is that in any way acceptable?

[jrumbut]

Well now this is an argument for free (as in speech) software on the phone, not sure any closed source system will be able to satisfy what you're looking for (and that's a good thing, but it's a much stronger claim).

[webmobdev]

Unfortunately one of the reasons why active and passive advocates of right to privacy are losing this fight is because people don't intrinsically understand how important it is politically for them. The ignorant lightly mock us, asking what do you have to hide. Sure, it is easy to make them think about this by asking them to turn over their email / IM account credentials if they "don't have anything to hide", but it still doesn't really educate them.

People don't understand that our right to privacy protects us from becoming easy and vulnerable political targets. It is essential to provide us a sense of security that is essential for our mental well-being ("life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as the US constitution puts it very simply). You may be a minority - a gay person or ethnic / religious / linguistic etc - and even if you live in a healthy democracy, you can be subject to light prejudice. Can you really feel secure if a Google search or a facial recognition software reveals everything about your identity to a stranger or a person in authority who can politically abuse it? Obviously, No. And this is not just confined to minorities. Even the majority community does experience anxiety and insecurity in a foreign or multi-cultural environment (a popular political saying in India is that everyone becomes a minority when they step out of their community). That sense of personal security and belonging can only come if you have a right of privacy and are in control of how much of your personal identity you want to reveal to someone. Democracies exist to protect minority rights. And everyone of us, sometime feel like a vulnerable minority because of some part of our identity. Without a right to privacy, our democracy fails us.