Bruce Schneier: Banning Facial Recognition Isn’t Enough
The idolization of privacy undermines American economic progress. Especially the new virulent variation which defends privacy in public.<p>1) Privacy in Public is impossible<p>Besides being a contradiction in terms, imagine what an ideal society of public privacy looks like: a society where everyone is masked, where voices are obscured, where names are anonymized, where everyone is isolated from everyone by a wall that says, “why do you need to know?” It is patently absurd to promote privacy in public. And ultimately the winners are those who don’t follow the law — those in power in the first place. Do you really think governments and corporations are going to follow their own laws, or fail to ensure loopholes which only their and the cronies can fit through? Yes, look at China. The solution to advanced technology is not to pretend it can be stopped. The solution is to make it available widely and freely. Technology can’t be stopped. But it can be monopolized and misused.<p>2) Privacy in Public is economic sabotage<p>Economically, the more corporations know about their customers the more that their business decisions — both strategic and tactical — will be made upon data rather than intuition. The less they know about their users — as any HN reader should know — the more their business is at risk of dying. The presumption of corporations as evil is simply unintelligent. It is especially galling to see such knee-jerk stupidity in a forum dedicated to making corporations. The greatest engine of wealth mankind has ever invented are corporations unhindered by market manipulations. The one exception being rules against monopolization and labor-abuse — i.e, practices that undermine the existence of corporations.<p>3) Privacy in private is overrated<p>I received an amber alert on my phone a few days ago. If even one child could be saved from abominable acts of evil, even if it meant privacy was abolished in public and private, I for one would be willing to make that sacrifice. Yes, I’d be embarrassed. Yes, it would put an enormous weight on me to know that anyone could find out about anything I’d ever do or am doing. But for me, a society of truth is a society without a place for evil to hide — whether that evil is kidnapping or corporate corruption.<p>3) Privacy is going to be lost.<p>The war is over. We shouldn’t pretend that those who stand most to abuse privacy — the powerful — are the ones best suited to control their own behaviors. Laws won’t stop those passing the laws. Only unhindered permeation of technology will.<p>I recognize I’m saying something unconventional if not provocative. But when people are scared they make irrational decisions. I’ve never seen so much irrationality among the intelligent as when it comes to privacy. People’s “thinking” on this topic is akin to religious devotion, and that’s what scares me the most.