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Excellent, thanks for this. The "nothing to hide" argument also rests on the absurd premise that the authorities all have pure motives and will not abuse their power with this level of access to private information. To assume that all authorities, everywhere, all have noble intentions and pure motives is absurd as assuming that all human being are perfect....

Even though it is a few years old, the topic is still relevant--and maybe even more so in the wake of Snowden. Although most of us do truly believe we have 'nothing to hide', we are all naively unaware of just how easily something innocent can be twisted to nefarious means. At the same time, if we are all being watched, are any of us really being watched? Something to ponder.

The big problem is the concept of privacy. In Brazilian law we have three kinds of personal information (data): public, private, and restricted. The difference between public and private information is matter of personal choice, in others words, each one may decide what is matter of the public or private information. The restricted informations are those that we are required by law to give the government, but the government cannot disclose without authorization. The privacy issue is respect for this choice between private and public data. When government or anybody disrespects this choice, we have a problem. I think in virtual ambience the users ignore those distinctions and make a big mess. If in one hand government and big players have been stealing our data, in other hand the users don't have necessary care about his own private information.

"Nothing to hide as at now" might be correct as a current status but not for the future. Human beings we always behave like we have control of our future. I may have nothing to hide as at now but in 10 years time when I ran for political office my past will surely halt me.

True, however our real name / our real identity, if used consistently across the variety of online audiences we engage with, permits Big Data to be aggregated, defining our activity as a distinct entity, giving it greater value in the analytics marketplace -- whether we have anything to hide or not ... What price do you wish to place on your digital self as an online product is the real question.

Makes a great point. I used to think that way, if I have nothing to hide I don't have to worry about what others find about me. But is true there is no need for everyone to have access to every single detail about you. And the point Kim and Philip made is really important, with more information available and more companies interested in making profit of it becomes more difficult to maintain control of who access your information and what it is used for.

The article raises two important points: (1) the right to know how information is being used and (2) the right to correct incorrect inferences being made from sometimes an incomplete information sets. I begin with the assumption that,despite how I take care to protect information, there are individuals and institutions that will find ways of dong so. So I want the right to appeal and set the record straight.

This would be a good addition to the next addition of our core reading list.

Thank you for sharing this. I can agree on that even though we have nothing to hide, it is matter of violating our right to keep it to our selves. However, I can say that it people's opinion for public-surveillance cameras in cities and towns may be different. The cameras may have good usage in order to solve or prevent crimes. It depends on how it is used I guess.

I like to differentiate 'privacy' which is a right every human should have, from 'privatisation' which is corporate mandates that suggest the right to hide or share information - mostly based in monetization. Technology has given us access to each other in ways never imagined, and until humanity reaches a higher order of compassion toward and consciousness with each other, this issue will eat at the very fabric of our society until our security obsessions destroy us.

Thanks for your sharing. The example of the government has installed millions of public-surveillance cameras in cities and towns, which are watched by officials via closed-circuit television in Britain makes me reflect on two aspects. Firstly, in my personal opinion, I think public-surveillance cameras provide citizens a better sense of security especially during nights. Secondly, the key point here is how the officials deal with the documentation of public-surveillance cameras, will citizens' privacy be exposed to public?