Brief by New America: “On a day-to-day basis, people make decisions about what information to share and what information to keep to themselves—guided by an inner privacy compass. Privacy is a concept that is both evocative and broad, often possessing different meanings for different people. The term eludes a common, static definition, though it is now inextricably linked to technology and a growing sense that individuals do not have control over their personal information. If privacy still, at its core, encompasses “the right to be left alone,” then that right is increasingly difficult to exercise in the modern era.
The inability to meaningfully choose privacy is not an accident—in fact, it’s often by design. Society runs on data. Whether it is data about people’s personal attributes, preferences, or actions, all that data can be linked together, becoming greater than the sum of its parts. If data is now the world’s most valuable resource, then the companies that are making record profits off that data are highly incentivized to keep accessing it and obfuscating the externalities of data sharing. In brief, data use and privacy are “economically significant.”
And yet, despite the pervasive nature of data collection, much of the public lacks a nuanced understanding of the true costs and benefits of sharing their data—for themselves and for society as a whole. People who have made billions by collecting and re-selling individual user data will continue to claim that it has little value. And yet, there are legitimate reasons why data should be shared—without a clear understanding of an issue, it is impossible to address it…(More)”.