Reasons Why Privacy Matters Part 2
Even though people are becoming more aware of the importance of privacy in our lives, the majority still does not understand why it matters. In part two of the privacy-focused series, we continue building a case by giving five more reasons why privacy is essential for our freedom.
Reasons Why Privacy Matters Part 1
Political Activity Freedom
Privacy enables us to be associated with other people and engage in political activities. One of the basic principles of freedom of political association is the ability to do so in private. We need to protect privacy because of the concern that people may not vote according to their conscience if monitored. Privacy provided by the voting booth is significant because it allows us to express our political beliefs. The watchful eye can disrupt us from doing the right thing.
Control Over Someone’s Life
Personal information is key to making so many decisions related to us. Whether you need to get a license, a loan or a job — our personal information plays a role.
Personal data is used to check whether the government investigates us, convicted of any crimes or just haven’t paid a parking ticket. It affects nearly everything related to us, even the ads we see online. Without knowing how are our credentials handled, we are virtually helpless nowadays. The personal data can be used to harm the person in question too. One of the pillars of freedom is having autonomy and complete control over our lives — and we cannot have that if so many key decisions about us are made without our awareness or participation.
Freedom of Speech
Privacy is essential to the freedom of thought and speech. If someone watches everything we read, watch or say it can keep us away from exploring ideas outside the mainstream. Privacy ensures our right to stay safe even when conveying unpopular messages. We may want to criticize the people we know, but not share the criticism with the world. Or maybe explore ideas that our families and friends dislike.
Ability to Get Second Chances
People are not static — they flow and change and grow as time flies. There is a lot of value in the ability to get a second chance, move forward after making a mistake or simply reinvent oneself. Privacy is the key to keeping this ability. It allows us to grow without being held down by all the foolish things we did in the past. Naturally, not all deeds should be protected, but some should be, encouraging growth and improvements.
Not Having to Justify Oneself
An important reason why privacy is crucial like also in the fact that we find it difficult to explain and justify our actions constantly. People do many things which, if judged from afar without complete understanding can look odd, embarrassing or even worse. Constant justification can be a heavy burden which we remove by keeping our privacy.
Conclusion
We hope this article helped you to realize why privacy matters and how to use it to protect your basic human rights. Stay tuned for more privacy-related posts. Thanks for reading!
Having questions? Feel free to post them in the comments! You can also join the burning discussion about privacy in our Telegram group.
