Digital privacy

Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

Edward Snowden

You should worry about your digital privacy, even though you “have nothing hide”. It’s all about freedom. Freedom of thought and expression, freedom to communicate in private and to store private information securely. Freedom to keep secrets, freedom to share secrets with those you trust. Freedom to have curtains behind the windows of your own home, and to move about without being tracked. Freedom to not have your computer or phone searched by strangers at airports (use strong encryption and store the passphrase in your head).

The events of recent years have shown to what lengths governments are willing to go to covertly get their hands on as much information as possible, beyond any law and constitution. While at the same time huge global corporations are harvesting and monetizing as much data about your life as possible.

Don't be a sheep. Don't be a product. Don't be a naive fool. Be aware, vigilant and exercise your rights. Take your own personal privacy seriously, because it will be constantly under attack now and in the future.

I support EFN, a Norwegian civil liberties organization. It is a sister organization to the better known Electronic Frontier Foundation. Some topics I find interesting are censorship, illegal or immoral surveillance of people through digital technology, invasion of privacy, network neutrality, libre software and open standards, interoperability concerns, hostile copyright legislation and DRM, source code patents and personally identifiable information in the age of modern society. Raising public awareness about issues such as these is an important matter.