To those who think that privacy is not a matter of interest, that a society that monitors its members does not affect them because they have “nothing to hide,” here is some food for thought, courtesy of Google Street View.
Originally published January 6, 2009
Erez Ronen reported last week on a woman from Madrid, who was caught by the lens of the Google Street View camera urinating in the street behind a parked car. The picture, distributed throughout the Web, became the joke of the day among surfers worldwide.
I glanced at some of the talkbacks on this site. One comment was that “whoever urinates in the middle of the road should not cry if her privacy is violated.” Another was that “this woman is an exhibitionist. She exposed herself. It is not as if someone else intruded on her privacy.” Why do I have the feeling that these talkbackers may themselves on occasion have urinated or perhaps picked their noses in a public space? And would the macho man, full of enthusiasm for those Spanish “babes,” write “What a beautiful behind!” if it was his sister who had been exposed? The same goes for user “Owl Givol” who claimed he entered a state of “ecstasy” and “sensuality” as a result of the whole incident?
I know where you live
It’s not that they would have died had a picture of them in a similar situation been published on the Internet, but it does seem to me that all of us are entitled to something more than simply “not to die.” Even “normative,” law-biding people do or say all sorts of things that they would prefer to keep to themselves and sometimes find themselves caught in intimate and embarrassing situations that they would not wish exposed to the public eye.
Anyone who believes that surveillance of their activities is confined to the public domain should know that Google’s cameras peer through the windows of private homes. And this is only one tiny example of the technologies that both the State and private bodies are using more and more extensively to track our activities. The woman from Madrid probably suffered no serious harm, but the consequences of incessant surveillance and data collection may be far more damaging. One can contemplate, for instance, the hair-raising significance of the simple phrase: “I know where you live.” Do we really want everyone to know where we are or what we are doing at every moment of the day?
It is true that in the past, too, there was a danger that our secrets could be exposed. If I had a relationship with someone that I hid from my friends, if others waiting in a queue listened to or could not avoid hearing the details of my digestive problems intended only for the pharmacist’s ears, or if I sunbathed on a nudist beach, it was possible that such things would come to the attention of people whom I didn’t want to know about them, but it was unlikely, the probability of it occurring very low. Estimates of probability and the likelihood that something will happen are legitimate elements to be taken into account as we try to protect our privacy. If we allow all to photograph us, record what we say, and to collect and keep whatever information they choose, it is no longer a possibility but a certainty. And our privacy will vanish.
Everyone needs a little privacy
Before discussing the cameras of Google or other new methods of surveillance, we should at least agree on the lessons of the above story. In all the examples given, I chose to protect my own privacy even though I had not done anything illegal nor had “something to hide” – even when I sunbathed clad only in a hat and sandals. Yet each of us needs some privacy even if not all of us are criminals.
Maybe what happened to that woman in Madrid will lead to second thoughts among those who have “nothing to hide’ and so have nothing to fear from surveillance cameras, the police’s eavesdropping, or the Interior Ministry’s biometric database. Under some circumstances, we may reach the conclusion that the benefits of surveillance outweigh the loss of privacy, but it is fitting that in each and every case we make the decision after weighing the costs involved. Constant surveillance and unrestrained accumulation of data cause damage and undermine human dignity. They don’t usually lead to loss of life (though sometimes they do), but we are entitled to aspire to more than merely staying alive.
Attorney Avner Pinchuk is head of the Information and Privacy Project at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and directs its “Fight against the Biometric Database” campaign.
