some arguments for privacy
A couple of weeks ago I asked for some arguments in favor of privacy. I pointed out that one person's increased privacy exerts negative externalities on others by reducing their available information. I wanted to know why more privacy might be beneficial to society despite this consideration. I didn't really get the answers I wanted, probably because I wasn't clear about the kind of arguments I had in mind. Anyway, here I give some arguments of my own, which I hope offer new perspectives on this issue. Privacy as Insurance Suppose you are looking for a job. It seems reasonable to argue that if you are a better than average worker, you would be able to get a better offer if you had less privacy because the potential employers would be better able to distinguish your abilities from your past history. On the other hand less privacy would hurt you if you are a worse than average worker. If you don't yet know your own abilities, you would prefer more privacy as an insurance against your own potential deficiencies. If that doesn't seem realistic, consider how the argument might apply to your children. This line of reasoning also explains why people are troubled by genetic screening. Thus privacy might increase social welfare by providing a sort of social insurance. Privacy as Restriction on Signaling "Signaling" is a term used by game theorists to describe the use of publicly observable actions to provide information to others about one's private attributes. The best example comes from biology, where male peacocks grow extravagant tails to signal their genetic fitness to females. Clearly signals must be costly, otherwise they wouldn't be convincing. They are often also wasteful, as in the peacock example. (As a side note, the deposit solution to the junk mail problem I talked about some days ago is an example of non-wasteful signaling.) Privacy reduces the range of actions one can use as signals. This would increase social welfare if the wastefulness of the signals exceed the benefit they provide in the form of useful information. Consider a possible future where every room in every house is wired with a camera that continously broadcasts to the Internet. Life would certainly be very uncomfortable in this future, as every trivial action must be carefully considered in order to preserve one's reputation. Possible Benefit of Non-Privacy Limited This is more of an argument for privacy technology, rather than privacy per se. Suppose that privacy-invading technology becomes much cheaper than privacy-enhancing technology. Given the arguments above it seems inevitible that governments will pass laws to restrict the distribution of certain kinds of information about individuals. But of course this will not keep the information out of the hands of those governments themselves and other resourceful organizations. Thus any possible benefit of decreased privacy in the form of market efficiency would be severely limited since only a few market players would have improved information. This benefit would be easily outweighted by the harm in the form of governments' increased coercive power.
One of the most compelling consequences of strong privacy is pseudonymity, i.e. the ability to conduct business and personal affairs without allowing others to learn your physical identity or location. This is a very strong protection against extortion, kidnapping and all other kinds of physical violence. (Its lesser cousin, anonymity, also protects again physical violence, but it has limited usefulness in business and/or personal affairs.) (For example, if a business magnate wishes to manage a vast financial empire while still allowing her children to grow up in a safe and open environment, there is probably no better solution than that she manage her vast financial empire pseudonymously, so that would-be thugs will not know _who_ to kidnap in order to extort ransom.) Perhaps Wei Dai should apply his sharp mind to analyzing the net effect on society of _that_ phenomenon. The benefit for the individual thus protected is clear, but, as the Unmentionable Topic shows, it is arguable that the net effect on society (as it were) will be less than optimal. Regards, Zooko Journeyman Disclaimers follow: I am not a cypherpunk. NOT speaking for DigiCash or any other person or organization. No PGP sig follows.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 02:15 AM 4/8/97 -0700, Wei Dai wrote:
Suppose you are looking for a job. It seems reasonable to argue that if you are a better than average worker, you would be able to get a better offer if you had less privacy because the potential employers would be better able to distinguish your abilities from your past history. On the other hand less privacy would hurt you if you are a worse than average worker.
One of the problems with talking about privacy is that people use the word to mean many different things. Apropos to the current discussion, I see two different uses co-existing in a non-useful way: 1. Privacy as a lack of information 2. Privacy as a right to control the flow of information where the second usage refers to the ability to decide who ends up with the first usage. I'm assuming that lack of information can be characterized as risk, and that risk can be characterized as negative value. The Coase Theorem would seem to suggest that the second usage is (may be) superfluous, because the [lack of] information/risk will be allocated to the party which values it most. However, the right discussed in (2) is still meaningful, because it is (and will) be used as a bargaining chip to gain or lose other things of value. Also, it's useful to think about whether or not there are (or should be) some things we are unwilling to do in the name of efficiency. For example, we might consider it "efficient" if people were allowed to sell their children; but most societies have chosen to consider markets for children unacceptable on moral grounds, apart from concerns about the efficient distribution of children. (I've heard that (Richard?) Posner, an outspoken federal appellate judge, wrote a paper discussing markets for children as a thought exercise; and that the political fallout from that paper (some 10-15 years later) means that he's got no real chance of a Supreme Court seat, even if he's otherwise qualified. Perhaps this message means I'll never get there, either. :( A society might choose to place privacy on the list of "things for which there may not be a market"; but adherents to the strong version of cryptoanarchy will likely predict that a market will exist, anyway. (I believe there's currently a small global market for children; but they're still more difficult to buy than, say, cigarettes. And slightly less difficult to buy than, say, a gun in Berkeley.) But (for me) the real reason that privacy is good (even if it's "inefficient") is that privacy is inherently related to control, and to freedom. It's very difficult to influence or alter the behavior of a person unless you can monitor their behavior. If we make it difficult (or impossible) to learn some things about people, we effectively create zones of autonomy related to those zones of privacy. I believe that this is the somewhat elusive link between the various constitutional rulings on "privacy" grounds, discussing abortion and contraception and childraising and interracial marriage and private possession of pornography and gay rights (although the last has failed, so far.) Those decisions paint an invisible line between "private" and "public" spheres, whereby the state cannot or should not interfere with personal choices; and I believe that the close correspondence between those lines and traditional notions of "intimacy" is not coincidental. I believe that a hypothetical privacy-free state would be "efficient" in the same way that a hypothetical centrally-planned economy is "efficient" - e.g., on paper, it sounds good. All of the right things will happen at just the right times, risks (or economic goods) will be allocated to those who deserve them, etc. In practice, centrally planned economies have proven to suffer from human flaws - greed, lust for power, shortsightedness, poor judgement, and so forth. The initial allocation of all (or substantially all) economic resources to one economic actor (the state) prevents the operation of the Coase Theorem and its redistribution of rights/values, because the other actors (individuals) have nothing to offer in return; and because it is not possible for the other actors to legitimately retain those rights or value. A society which initially distributed information rights to the state - or which refused to recognize them as rights - would, I believe, create a similar lack of freedom and autonomy. It's difficult to discuss privacy in economic terms because we are accustomed to valuing one side of the choice - risk, or lack of information - in quantitative terms, but we are not accustomed to valuing the other side - freedom, or lack of opportunity to exercise control - in quantitative terms. (I don't think that the other party's valuation of risk is a good measure for the value of the freedom. But this is turning into a pretty long message which is somewhat more theoretical than may be of interest to many list members. So I'll go to bed and see if people feel like continuing in this vein.) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQEVAgUBM0omo/37pMWUJFlhAQHABQf/QQW4B+Wwq6gGLV/YxvAawYOiGp8VBTqm EUSyTjw+Wai+vv/RovdgvKtU3JWxFn91tU28kkTDqjQ2DqkapWK8zi42XIIite3/ HXQ3t18BGhq1v9IRvOlOOIKXmeEG+frf59CTczzgwzivDSfmchT8PSOvHJo9+KKp vzHbwaWGS1pCUeQZNYl5GQ1667jb0oy+wKssiX9Cy4HuQ2z/ZnFYKjQZsGfEJalK z9yoTyGMCB6KUFuEL+AdDe6HdikSqQgBgJBOCXi/B8OTkKPgfOnsdiueiVq6GIgC fVEywZo5nCtWDfVW1/QE39O7jBQvLG2pdTE5aaYQzLR2xIN3vAAAow== =exeH -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles@netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |
On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Greg Broiles wrote:
One of the problems with talking about privacy is that people use the word to mean many different things. Apropos to the current discussion, I see two different uses co-existing in a non-useful way:
1. Privacy as a lack of information 2. Privacy as a right to control the flow of information
where the second usage refers to the ability to decide who ends up with the first usage. I'm assuming that lack of information can be characterized as risk, and that risk can be characterized as negative value. The Coase Theorem would seem to suggest that the second usage is (may be) superfluous, because the [lack of] information/risk will be allocated to the party which values it most. However, the right discussed in (2) is still meaningful, because it is (and will) be used as a bargaining chip to gain or lose other things of value.
What I meant by privacy is somewhat different from your definitions: "the ability of an individual to control the distribution of information about himself". Notice that I said "ability" instead of "right". Part of what makes privacy so interesting is that the Coase Theorem doesn't apply. If you look at the Coase Theorem carefully, it presuposes the lack of transaction costs, which in turn means that all relevant information is distributed symmetrically among interested parties. (Otherwise the cost of inducing some individuals to disclose private information to others becomes part of the transaction cost.) Therefore even to invoke the Coase Theorem implies that either there is no privacy, or for some reason no one chooses to exercise his privacy. In fact, this is exactly what I meant by the inefficiency of privacy: not only does the Coase Theorem not apply to privacy itself, it undermines the Coase Theorem everywhere else by increasing transaction costs. The rest of your article is very interesting, so please keep going. I'll just take this opportunity to point out that the most useful measure of efficiency is a relative one. Even the centrally planned economy is not totally inefficient. Apparently some CPEs seem quite able to keep its citizens from starvation, even for years at a time. The CPE is only inefficient compared to the market economy. If for some reason human beings are inherently unable to organize markets (perhaps because of some deep-seated cultural bias against putting prices on essentials like food and children), then the CPE might very well be the best alternative.
At 1:15 AM -0800 4/8/97, Wei Dai gave some arguments pro and con privacy:
Privacy as Restriction on Signaling
.... Consider a possible future where every room in every house is wired with a camera that continously broadcasts to the Internet. Life would certainly be very uncomfortable in this future, as every trivial action must be carefully considered in order to preserve one's reputation.
Or peoples expectation about the range of private behavior will change to be more in line with the reality. Those whose behavior is 5 standard deviations away from the norm will be screwed.
Possible Benefit of Non-Privacy Limited
This is more of an argument for privacy technology, rather than privacy per se. Suppose that privacy-invading technology becomes much cheaper than privacy-enhancing technology. Given the arguments above it seems inevitible that governments will pass laws to restrict the distribution of certain kinds of information about individuals. But of course this will not keep the information out of the hands of those governments themselves and other resourceful organizations.
Such laws will support monopoly use of personal information, and as such be very unlikely to contribute to the good of society. At CFP '97, David Brin gave a lunch talk where he argued against privacy and in favor of accountability. The example he used was the cop and the driver, both with the secure recording TV cameras on their shoulders. Of course the crypto-anarchist view is you can use any information you can get, and I can use strong privacy technologies to keep you from getting it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | God could make the world | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | in six days because he did | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@netcom.com | not have an installed base.| Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
participants (4)
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Bill Frantz -
Bryce -
Greg Broiles -
Wei Dai