[a3n]

> What could they do with that information that would be harmful to me?

Harmful to someone, and it's different for different people at different times. Also, a piece of information that may be benign today could be harmful tomorrow with a change in the political environment.

Maybe you visited a specialist, or were on the same floor as a specialist, and got extra attention from your health insurance as a result.

Maybe you were standing near someone being investigated, making you a person of interest and therefor subject to prosecutorial bullying.

Maybe you're trying to overthrow a government and would like to do it in safety for as long as possible.

Maybe you just like your privacy.

[imgabe]

If you visited the specialist, your health insurance would already know because they'd be paying the bill. Now, I'm not an expert on medical billing, but I can't imagine how "being on the same floor" as a specialist could result in any sort of invoice. I'm not sure what you mean by "extra attention". Why would the insurance company use that information? Surely any given specialist is around hundreds of people every day he or she isn't treating, so that particular data point has no use in predicting who is going to receive care from that specialist.

Standing near someone - same argument as above.

In the rare case that you are actively involved in overthrowing a corrupt government, then yes, it is important to keep yourself hidden from that government. But privacy in general does nothing to prevent the corrupt government from coming to power in the first place. If anything we need less privacy - for the government.

People don't "just like" things for no reason. I think it's worth examining why we like privacy and what needs it fulfills, and what other ways we might be able to fulfill those needs. It seems to me that digital information is just too easy to distribute for us to have any hope of containing it. We are better off assuming any available information is going to be made public and finding the best way to proceed from there.