[YeahNO]

You would think the panic over TikTok spying would illuminate the problem with apps having carte-blanche access to your personal data 24/7. There is nothing that the TikTok app does that any other app cannot also do. It seems nobody wants to make that connection.

There should be real protections for consumers to prevent ANY application from slurping up this data, and I don't mean just a disclosure or system setting to hamstring the application into uselessness. I mean, there should be regulations preventing the collection of this data in the first place, with hefty fines and punitive damages.

[eternityforest]

Most privacy advocates probably do plenty of things I would be perfectly happy to see made illegal, but we don't just ban them because we don't want a complete dictatorship of one segment of the population over everyone else, and because it seems the people realize it would cause problems for some people, and we need to be careful to find suitable replacements before we ban things.

A lot of the tech I imagine you are referring to has been life changing for me, and if it cost normal SASS prices would not be affordable.

Regulations and disclosures are good, but a straight ban would (depending on how it was written) quite likely affect services that inherently require mass data collection, like Tile trackers, and might make other services have to do subscriptions and become unaffordable for many.

If there was a state sponsored Pine64 style company that could do all of what Google does for the same price without spying, it would be great. But at the moment, the FOSS community does not have true equivalents, or the budget or interest to do so, nor the marketing power to do the stuff that only works if everyone else uses it, and the non-spy commercial solutions have many of the same issues and cost too much for low income people.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

<< A lot of the tech I imagine you are referring to has been life changing for me, and if it cost normal SASS prices would not be affordable.

I think part of the issue is that it is too affordable. The whole free content, free email, free infrastructure got us into current mess to begin with and since advertising was the only place that paid, now it is a part of the landscape. But on that front, pendulum may be swinging the other way.

And privacy itself is one of those terms that can easily led into a very broad discussion unless it is not clearly defined from the outset.

<< we need to be careful to find suitable replacements before we ban things.

Nah, as a society we were very permissive for the past two decades at least. It is time for tech to grow up and join the rest of the mature industries.

<< But at the moment, the FOSS community does not have true equivalents,

Sadly true. I am currently on Pine ( postmarketos ) since my main phone died. I absolutely love the idea and I keep trying to support it when I have a chance, but it is still not ready for prime time ( and I am not good enough to contribute in code ).

<< and the non-spy commercial solutions have many of the same issues and cost too much for low income people.

And this is why spying - ekh, totally voluntary data collection - should just be verbotten. We have seen where this road leads and it is not fun long term.

[eternityforest]

Well, I sure don't ever want to losing half my day to forgetting things, being constantly lost, and losing my keys and wallet constantly.

As far as effects on me, getting rid of modern tech would already be getting close to the authoritarian nightmare they talk about, far more than basically any of the laws other people complain about.

If the effects are harmful enough to regulate, it's the same kind of conversation as cigarettes and gas engines and a million other things that we put varying levels of restrictions on but don't ban.

Going after spy tech with more force than we go after everything else just seems like government enforced luddism.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

<< Going after spy tech with more force than we go after everything else just seems like government enforced luddism.

You do have a point especially if I examine my thoughts on cigarettes, alcohol and so on to determine what makes spy tech more of a target in my life. I think the difference is that even without regulations and restrictions, I can escape both cigarettes, gas engines and so on if I so choose.

With spy tech, even if I take just about every step there is to take, even full blown luddism does not get me the world that was. These days, being a private person takes real money ( vide FB Zuckerberg buying property to ensure privacy on his real estate ).

You do have a point nonetheless, which brings me to this: what is an acceptable restriction on it to you?

[eternityforest]

I'm not actually sure what the "maximum viable policy" would be for me. While privacy is a right, so is free speech and observation. Even something like "You can't spy whatsoever without consent" goes too far, because CCTV cameras are important, and legalizing secret recordings could deter many kinds of abuse.

One thing that definitely seems uncontroversial is protection for spaces that have an expectation of privacy. Obviously no democratic state has any business allowing AirBNB bathroom cameras, since basically nobody aside from criminals wants that to exist, and by extension any space that specifically claims to be private should have the same protection.

Requiring a "Facebook moderators may access these chat logs under some conditions" notice at the beginning of everything someone might otherwise think was private seems reasonable.

What I have more of an issue with is defining new spaces with that expectation.

The government should probably have stricter rules than everyone else on privacy, since they are the main group who both can and possibly might want to actually make use of data to harm an average person.

Digital search warrants and subpoenas have solved real problems, so I wouldn't want to get rid of those entirely, but there could be a central logging facility where you can get access to any data they have on you, get notified instantly (Or within a time limit that expires if you are arrested, if there's a need to temporarily seal it to prevent tipping off a murderer) of any new accesses, and appeal the decision that allowed them to access it, so they can't just rubber stamp give it to everyone without any transparency.

Encryption should be permanently made a right, along with anonymity networks like Tor, and Cryptocurrency in general(Although maybe not proof of work, and I sure wouldn't want to become an everyday thing we all have to deal with).

The big problem with spying is that it's just observing people and telling others what you saw, you can't fully eliminate spying without eliminating an important part of free speech.

In general, the GDPR seems to get things mostly right, but I still think the best solution is actually having private alternatives people actually would use by choice, and making sure those are legally protected.

[nichohel]

What do you mean by "Most privacy advocates probably do plenty of things I would be perfectly happy to see made illegal"? Can you give some examples of what you mean by things you want to see made illegal?

[867-5309]

eating meat, burning coal, owning pets, paying taxes, cycling, sunbathing, crochet, wearing crocks with socks, shitposting..

[hb0ss]

Cycling… says the corn syrup addicted American

[867-5309]

they probably would!

[JohnFen]

Most privacy advocates I know revolve around the concept of "informed consent". The idea isn't to ban technologies because they can be abused, it's to stop the abuse.

The guiding principle for when that line is crossed is whether or not the affected person was completely and accurately informed about what is going to happen, and that they have affirmatively given their consent for it to happen.

[eternityforest]

The GDPR goes a little farther than that though, because it makes consent revokable even after the fact, and disallows consent as a requirement to access a service, and some privacy advocates seem to think that's still not enough.

[JohnFen]

The ability to revoke consent is an essential part of consent, in my view.

> some privacy advocates seem to think that's still not enough.

I am one of them. I think the GDPR is inadequate in many ways, but it's certainly a huge improvement over the nothing that existed prior, and it's much better than anything we have here in the US.

But the things I think are inadequate about the GDPR still revolve around consent. I will admit that "consent" is a very broad term, though, and includes a whole lot of intricacies and nuances. It's a bit like "freedom" in that sense.

[eternityforest]

I guess it depends on how you view personal data.

To me, it's just like any other data, licensing it to someone is no different than licensing the source code to something you wrote, if it's revokable the whole concept doesn't make sense, and you don't really own it so much as it's held in trust by the state.

But it seems like some people see it as something really personal and special that inherently shouldn't be treated like any other commercial asset, (Possibly because they've got more interesting lives than mine!) and there doesn't seem to be any compromise that doesn't make someone unhappy.

Revocability does make a lot of sense and I can think of a lot of very good use cases for that right, but also some ways it impairs P2P.

I think the only real solution is for private tech to achieve real parity with nonprivate tech, at least as much as is possible (Tech is almost never private compared to no tech at all, it can always be hacked), but I have no idea how that would be possible.

Technically it could happen, socially FOSS devs would rather work on minimalist stuff.

[Shish2k]

> To me, it's just like any other data, licensing it to someone is no different than licensing the source code to something you wrote, if it's revokable the whole concept doesn't make sense, and you don't really own it so much as it's held in trust by the state.

We live in a world where “buy this movie” on a streaming site gives you no kind of ownership, merely a temporary license to rent the data until the company decides they don’t want you to have it any more - treating personal data the same way doesn’t seem bad by comparison...

[JohnFen]

> To me, it's just like any other data, licensing it to someone is no different than licensing the source code to something you wrote

I agree with this. It's your data, you're free to license it out in any way you choose.

> if it's revokable the whole concept doesn't make sense, and you don't really own it so much as it's held in trust by the state.

I don't understand this. How does your ability to revoke a license you've issued mean that it's held in trust by the state? Revocability underscores that you own the data and can control what happens to it in the future.

By the way, almost all licenses are revocable.

> But it seems like some people see it as something really personal and special that inherently shouldn't be treated like any other commercial asset,

And those people aren't wrong. They're exerting their rightful control over their data as they see fit. If I choose to license my data out, I am also exerting my rightful control over my data as I see fit. There is no contradiction here -- in both cases, it's about consent.

[specialist]

What's your position on the right to privacy?