BT 2006 trials of Phorm

[Wendy M. Grossman]

Ian Batten wrote:

> 
> A lot of people have a conditional attitude to privacy: they're prepared 
> to sell it for small sums of money, and apply a ``what harm have I 
> suffered?'' calculus to breaches.  Privacy as an abstract concept 
> doesn't resonate.  Which is why ``those with nothing to hide'' has such 

My usual answer to the 'nothing to hide' meme is to suggest that the 
speaker would be happy to receive all his bank statements on post cards.

> traction: privacy in many peoples' minds equates to ``things you should 
> make public but keep secret for your own advantage'', not helped by the 
> regular whines about ``privacy'' from politicians which _are_ entirely 
> about self-interest.
> 
> I don't think that abstract privacy had, or has, broad appeal.  We need 
> to make the risks more concrete, demonstrating actual harm beyond ``your 
> privacy was invaded''.  Claims that, say, IP numbers are private 
> information and any processing of them is a prima facie breach of 
> privacy are a tough row to hoe.

Yes. It really needs good graphical demonstrations where someone can see 
  the amount of information that's being collected and the consequences 
of same. Unfortunately, that kind of transparency is exactly what's been 
lost in trying to make computers easy to use.

wg