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0 pointsduckmysick5y ago0 comments

There's nothing in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights about privacy regarding medical records, but various jurisdictions agree that it's worth protecting.

> Sorry, but "you shouldn't be able to collect information" isn't an argument.

How about "private entities shouldn't be able to collect my information without my explicit consent".

> It's a wish. Nobody is under any obligation to indulge the wishes of random strangers.

Yours included.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

quotemstr5y ago· 1 in thread

> How about "private entities shouldn't be able to collect my information without my explicit consent"

Keeping a diary or a phone contact list would be forbidden under a strict reading of that rule. Even remembering the name of a person you met at a party would be forbidden unless you ask for explicit consent first. "Hey, Joe. Great to meet you. Mind if I make a mental note connecting your face to your name?" Real people don't think like this.

We all have a natural freedom to record facts we perceive in the world around them. Taken to its logical conclusion, privacy advocacy is about mandatory forgetting. No, thanks.

imiric5y ago

The issue is not with individuals keeping track of relationships and their contact lists. It's with how that information is further used, shared and sold. I wouldn't be pleased if a friend whom I trusted with my contact information shared it with others without my consent, and I would be very displeased if it ended up on Facebook[1].

PII is very valuable to advertisers (or to adtech as I recently learned[2]) as it allows them to target individuals based on interest. Beyond the fact that I don't enjoy being forced into complicitness to being manipulated into purchasing a product, I strongly object to having a profile in some mega-corp's database that has my personal information I didn't agree to share with them, for them to disect, analyze and sell in perpetuity, and to wonder how future advancements in adtech might use this data in less benign ways than today.

At the very least, I would like a share of the profits they're making from me. Facebook and Google should be paying users to use their products, or everyone on the internet rather, but I don't think their shareholders would like that very much.

[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-uploaded-1-5-millio...

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27531714

freediver5y ago

> How about "private entities shouldn't be able to collect my information without my explicit consent".

If the information is public, no consent is needed.

Privacy is about trusting someone with private information and expecting they will not do anything with it that you would not approve of.

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