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Comment by lloeki

1 month ago

> I want privacy codified in human law

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks

- Paris, 1948, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

6 comments

lloeki

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dcow  1 month ago

Which says nothing about a business profiling customers that walk through the door and selling its profiles to aggregators. It says nothing about requiring consent before soliciting individuals or subjecting them to psychologically manipulative advertisements. Etc. We need more.

  • 0xEF  1 month ago

    The problem is interpretation. The key phrase is "interference with privacy" which is ambiguous yet all encompassing. You say it says nothing toward solicitation or manipulation where I interpret both of those acts as "interference with my privacy." Not saying your version is wrong, by the way, just different from mine as a example of where the protection falls apart.

    My gut feeling as that no matter how much additional and specific language we add to any bill of privacy rights, there will always be holes or work-arounds due to interpretation and semantics. This is how lawyers in most robust legal systems make their living, after all. The data that results from robbing us of consent, privacy and agency when engaged with websites, web/mobile apps and software is so insanely valuable that the people interested in collecting and selling it will be happy to keep one step ahead of whatever language we come up with that attempts to mitigate their actions.

    We need a different solution, one that returns us to the levels of implied trust I remember from the late 1990's/early 2000's Internet, one that prevents corporate entities from being the dominant drivers behind its growth and development. However, I am not technical enough or imaginative enough to even guess at what that solution might be, so from my perspective, the battle is already lost and we are at their mercy unless we avoid having an online presence as much as possible...a bit like that old classic movie War Games, the only way to win is not to play.

    • KronisLV  1 month ago

      > My gut feeling as that no matter how much additional and specific language we add to any bill of privacy rights, there will always be holes or work-arounds due to interpretation and semantics.

      Nobody will ever write a perfect law and you’ll always see cases like dark patterns when people try to unsubscribe from things or try to maintain their privacy, until there is proper enforcement and businesses start getting punished for violating the intent of the law. That is also unlikely.

cess11  1 month ago

That's a declaration, which is not binding. The ECHR art. 8 has similar contents and is binding. However, it has a 'unless we really want to'-portion:

"except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

Currently 'the West' happens to be doing its best to quash international law, so I'd expect even that thin veneer to crumble rather soon.