Data is the new oil: and the gov wants yours

Yesterday I made a post on X responding to a post associating users of the famous privacy-respecting Proton Mail service with “suspicious people” and pedos.

That is, of course, a very misguided comment, but I was flooded with replies ranging from “Bro you’re not important enough” to “Why should I even care?” which genuinely surprised me.

So, in this little blogpost, I will address some of the stuff commented on so you, hopefully, can be aware of the risks of giving your data to big tech.

“You’re not important, they don’t care about you”

Most people that use this kind of argument still thinks that spying on others’ messages is something like the old movies from 1950: Cars with agents sitting outside your house, spying on your phone network with their wiretap that they snuck on.

Of course, in the past, you needed a reasonable amount of manpower to spy on one person, let alone a whole country. And I agree, I, you, your family are (probably) not important enough for a government to care.

But since the internet became widespread (and with it, services like Whatsapp, Gmail, Google Drive, etc.), it is 1000x easier to process personal data. Every time you send a message in WhatsApp, upload a photo to Google Cloud, and write an e-mail in Gmail, the contents of your messages, your interests, locations are all processed by a big algorithm that then compiles all the data into graphs, showing what people are interested in, what their opinions are, and what they want. I leave it to your discretion to imagine what they do with such data. For instance, scandals like Cambridge Analytica showed how this data can manipulate elections by targeting voters with personalized propaganda based on their online behavior.

“But I have nothing to hide.”

You do. Privacy is not about hiding your wrongdoing; it’s about having control over your personal data. You have tons of data—medical records, financial data, personal beliefs—that can (and will) be used to make targeted propaganda, hiring predictions, evaluations of your contract with health insurance, and other stuff like that.

Also, companies and governments collecting your data can misuse it in ways that don’t require you to be “guilty” of anything. Targeted advertising manipulates behavior, data breaches expose you to identity theft, and unchecked surveillance can lead to profiling or discrimination based on innocuous activities.

And handing over data to corporations or governments creates a power asymmetry. You have little control over how your data is stored, shared, or used. Even if you trust current entities, future regimes or company policies could shift, using your data against you in ways you can’t predict—and that could come back to haunt you.

“What should I do then?”

Stop using services that collect your data. https://awesome-privacy.xyz/ is a great place to find alternatives to your services.

One point I should note is that I do not agree with you NEEDING to be 100% pro-privacy-respecting in all aspects of your life.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where using tools that do not respect your privacy are normal (and most of the time, required). So it’s fine if you have to use Teams or Outlook for work—that is an unfortunate part of our lives. But it’s better to be 70% protected than 0%. So give preference to those services, so that we can escape this big, digital bubble and live in a world where privacy is the norm.