So what is an effective answer? Requirements: Short, high-impact, memorable (it must spread), crystal clear for the completely non-technical, not easily refuted.
So what is an effective answer? Requirements: Short, high-impact, memorable (it must spread), crystal clear for the completely non-technical, not easily refuted.
Ten years from now, or tomorrow, People You Don't Like could be in charge of any given agency or company, and deny you things then based on what you did today that was perfectly legal or ethical.
There are more extrapolations from that but it should be enough to be short but get the gears turning.
If they are concerned with racial issues (or similar), try pointing out how data analysis can hide institutional racism (or other biases) - even unintentionally - into the algorithms behind finance, criminal sentencing/parole, future employment opportunities, etc.
Even if none of that happens to apply, there are two big reasons they should care. First, the unknown. In the circus we call our current political environment, do they really want a future $POLITICAL_ENEMY to have a detailed map of who they are, what they do, what they like, where they move during the day and who was with them (COTRAVELER), and anything else modern machine learning techniques can find?
The final reason is... because it isn't always about them. Other people might be in worse situations and it's important to stand with them by normalizing sufficient privacy. In his essay[1] on why he wrote PGP, Philip Zimmermann said
>> "What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If a nonconformist tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their email, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their email privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity."
This is similar to the concept of herd immunity[2] with vaccines. Vaccines are not 100% protection and some people cannot take them for various reasons. Those people still benefit from the general vaccine use producing fewer opportunities for infection. Similarly, when enough people protect their privacy, there is less incentive to abuse data thanks to lower profits and increased political costs.
[1] https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html
Do you know of any evidence where that has happened? I wanted to say that those things they blamed on Obamacare were actually because they were posting pictures of themselves at barbeques on facebook- but it's hyperbole to my knowledge.
The "getting rid of envelopes for mail" argument might work on some.
In the 1930s The Netherlands recorded the religious affiliation of every citizen inside their resident register (stored on punch cards for use with Hollerith machines). After the Nazis invaded the Netherlands they were able to easily find out who was Jewish, had Jewish parents or grandparents. The consequences those people had to face are well known.
Source (german): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenkartei#Niederlande