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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Why should I have to be afraid of anything?

Is this a riff on the 'if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear' theme?

I just don't think it is ok that large companies are working their way into datasets about every living body on the planet and that is my right.

See also, article 12:

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

http://www.claiminghumanrights.org/udhr_article_12.html#at13

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I can't speak for the guy you're replying to, but I'm also curious what harm you're afraid of, mostly so that I can also be afraid of it.

Definitely not the "nothing to hide" stuff as I'm very pro-privacy.

I have a vague fear of some kind of dystopian situation that arises or is influenced by these huge, accurate data sets. I'm curious if you have more specific qualms with it. My vague fear hasn't kept photos of me off of social media, even though I'm okay being a "weird guy who doesn't take photos" if need be.

I know your username and respect your opinion, maybe the grandparent does as well.

I'm not afraid of anything, I just want a modicum of control over who has access to my data and Facebook is one of the companies that I would not trust with anything.

Why does there have to be a scenario attached to this? They've shown time and again that they don't give a rats ass about the people whose data they collect.

The default is not 'on' when it comes to sharing your data, the default is 'off', and even then it should be grounded in need. As long as I don't see the need there is no other reason that I would need to justify my behavior.

On the other hand, there is a very large need for FB to explain its behavior but hardly anybody seems to care. So I'm happy to be the exception.

Facebook's literal book of faces will be used by law enforcement to establish/verify alibi, establish/verify presence at the scene of a crime, etc.

These tools, no doubt, are being built out with heavy support from the State.

I don't read that as "no one can take my photo", though. Certainly that language should protect me from people invading my private space to take photos of me, but if I'm out and about in public, I should have no expectation that no photos will be taken of me, and I would feel very wrong asking someone to delete a photo of me in a public place. I would consider that to be infringing on their rights.

I get that photos of people can be a lot more harmful than a casual photographer might assume, but I would never accede to a request from a random stranger to delete a photograph that they just happened to be in. If someone requested that I not take a photo of them, I personally would comply out of a sense of politeness, but I don't believe anyone has a legal or moral obligation to comply when in public.

(But yes, I know, this is just my opinion and preference, just like yours is yours.)

It depends. Tourist taking picture of Dam Square and I'm walking by: no problem. Tourist getting up-close and personal and making a picture where I am the subject of the picture will probably find me very annoying. Friends and family already long ago gave up trying to take my picture for their Facebook pages, the last instance I remember was two years ago in a restaurant in Amsterdam and on first request the image was deleted. People in general are pretty reasonable, whether they have a legal obligation or not is usually trumped by good manners.

As I understand US law, when you're in public you have no expectation of privacy, and you can't do anything about having your photo taken. This is tangental to your point, but does that also mean that Facebook is legally free to ID you in photos which are taken in public? I really don't know.

(FWIW, I'm with you, it makes me crazy when family members post all their holiday photos on Facebook and tag me in them.)

I don't live in the US. And besides that there is a huge difference between just making a photograph and making a photograph with the intent of publication. That's when you get into portrait rights and such, especially if the person you are photographing is the main subject of the photo. Then it is mostly a matter of respect.

For celebrities and politicians there are yet more rules and exceptions.

This is not arbitrary. There is a clear upside: the ability to quickly find all pictures of a person, either by that person themselves or by other people. The benefit provided by this feature has to be weighed against its potential for harm in order to decide whether it is a permissible use of technology or not.

To be honest, facebook should have gathered consent in a GDPR-compliant way: opt-in. But IMHO the feature isn't bad in and of itself. Even recognizing people not on facebook isn't necessarily wrong, as long as facebook isn't building a profile of that person (but merely doing the equivalent of recognizing bananas in all of someone's pictures so they can do a search for banana.)

But given the value provided by the feature, again I ask: what is the harm you're afraid of?

> There is a clear upside: the ability to quickly find all pictures of a person, either by that person themselves or by other people.

That's not a benefit to me.

> But given the value provided by the feature, again I ask: what is the harm you're afraid of?

You're stuck. It's kind of annoying when you ask someone a question, they give you an answer and then you repeat the question again. Either you're going to have to live with my answer or you're going to have to live with not getting the answer that you want.

BTW, I find it hilarious to be lectured by you on HN where your profile is as good as anonymous and mine is stating exactly who I am and where I live.

What are you afraid of?

I believe I understand your point of view (and please correct me if I don't): you don't want these companies to track any data about you because you think of digital privacy as an absolute right.

Now try to understand my point of view: I think treating digital privacy as an absolute right is probably a mistake. First of all it's a denial of how the real world works (where you never have absolute privacy since other people will always know things about you). Secondly, the potential for social data to create value to society is quite large, and absolute privacy means we won't have any of that value. Admittedly, there is a also a big potential for harm, but that's my point: let's be deliberate about these things, not just dismiss them without consideration.

You set up a strawman and then eloquently argue against it.

No, I don't think digital privacy is an absolute right. Obviously some level of online interaction is ok with me otherwise we would not be having this conversation. But I do believe that individuals should have some control over what data of their ends up online and that simply exercising that control should be possible without getting accused of being afraid of specific use cases of that data.

Value creation to society doesn't interest me one bit without an actual example of such value created. The only value FB cares about is the value of their stock and since I'm not a stockholder it doesn't create value for me.

The fact that there is potential for harm would be enough reason for me to be considerate but if even if it weren't I'd still be within my rights to limit which bits of me are online and which are not, it is you that rejects stuff without consideration and it is you that puts the onus on the people exercising their consideration to prove to you beyond some nebulous standard of doubt that those people are not afraid of something when in fact this was never the case to begin with.

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