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Comment by llampx | Hacker News Reader

Never thought I'd read the "What have you got to hide?" argument on HN of all places.

First of all, you're being disingenious by putting up a strawman argument about "how much milk and eggs you buy." It is never about only milk and eggs. Advertising is only a part of it. Once you have an ID required to shop there, you can easily track who was there. You can follow their movements around the shop with cameras once you've identified them at the register. You can see who was with them. You can use this for your own gains, let's say you are a bank employee or police officer who wants to keep tabs on your spouse. Or maybe you are a politician who wants to run a smear campaign on your opponent.

Also whether we'll have much worse things to worry about doesn't mean everything else before guillotines on the street can be hand-waved away.

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> You can use this for your own gains, let's say you are a bank employee or police officer who wants to keep tabs on your spouse.

I think it's obvious that the data would not be public domain but stored strongly secured somewhere with very limited access. There are already very strict data privacy laws in Europe and the trend is clearly towards even more strictness.

I, too, don't see any issue as long the as the laws punish misuse of private data.

The laws may punish the misuse of data, but laws change, as do vilified minorities.

Never forget that while you may be one of the privileged now, your status will change throughout your life. If you’re lucky you will only become a more privileged individual, if not, you may wish to have a few more anonymous interactions on a regular basis.

Protecting privacy isn’t so much about not caring who knows the quantity of eggs you buy a week it’s about acknowledging history and the fickle winds of change. It’s sort of easy to believe that progressive attitudes will continue to prevail and that history tends to lead to increasing enlightenment, but there are often major backslides on issues of social norms and inclusiveness. It’s also about realizing that what you do today might not get you in trouble, but what you did last year might, even though last year no one would have thought twice about what you did.

"Let's just amass a huge amount of power in a place that only I can get to it, and I'll just promise that I'll never misuse it and that no one will every break in to take it."

That plan has literally never worked throughout history.

> I think it's obvious that the data would not be public domain but stored strongly secured somewhere with very limited access.

That may be an obvious intent, but I do not believe it is obvious the implementation will succeed in achieving those goals. From past experience, it rarely has.

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