Why Privacy Matters

Have you ever Googled yourself? A few years ago I did and it was shocking. I immediately logged into Facebook and Instagram to change the settings and make my posts a little more ‘private’. I managed to achieve this, but only for so long.

I thought nothing more until I was watching a drama on TV and the following quote boomed across the living room: ‘Those who worry most about privacy are always the ones who have something to hide.’

This got me thinking whether this is the case. The answer is no. And I came to this conclusion by reading Why Privacy Matters.

Author Neil Richards captures some very thought-provoking situations and his book is an exceptionally good read. While it is not an everyday ‘how to’ guide for practitioners who work in the relevant field, it can certainly help seasoned practitioners, newcomers to law or those who wish to explore the deeper meaning of privacy law understand why privacy may be about power. It helps those in law understand why their client may be worried about their data being misused or misappropriated, and what those who collect our data can do with it. By understanding why privacy matters, we can better understand how to assist those seeking our help.    

Richards explains how the data about us can be used to affect our lives and he puts forward some compelling notions.

For example, target marketing. I have always known that it exists. It is how I purchased my reMarkable writing tablet. I once complained to my husband that I hate using so much paper and wished I could just delete what I had written in pen. Voilà, miraculously that night, an ad for the reMarkable tablet came up on Facebook. A few clicks later and I had purchased it.

The author explains how a journalist discovered that, in 2002, the Target Corporation (in the US) figured out how to tell when a woman (and in particular their customer) was pregnant. Richards goes on to explain exactly what the corporation did to ensure their sales increased by knowing this information and, more specifically, when to send certain vouchers to use in store.

‘The future of privacy is the future of our society … privacy matters because it helps us to develop our identities,’ the author writes.

Why Privacy Matters is full of information that will keep the reader on edge. Reading the book has made me think twice about what I post online, or how I use my points card when shopping. Maybe accruing those points for every £1 spent isn’t worth it in the end.

Another example is ‘emotional contagion’. Richards explains in simple terms how Facebook teamed up with data scientists from Cornell University to test whether they could manipulate the emotions of Facebook users through their news feed: could Facebook make their users sad or happy?

Facebook found that it could, which is scary if nothing else.

Richards states in his book that if you are to take only one thing by reading it, it is that we make one very important observation. This being that ‘privacy is fundamentally about power’.

I must admit that I’d never thought of privacy in that way. Privacy was all about me. Until reading this book, aged 40. Now I look at privacy with a different mindset. I shop more carefully, and I certainly double check the information I put ‘out there’.

I don’t know enough about the topic to agree just yet whether privacy is about power, but certainly Richards’ explanations have persuaded me to some extent and, if anything, this has made me want to investigate further.

Zainab Zaeem-Sattar is a solicitor at Runnymede Law, London