Originally Posted by
the sci guy
seems like another thing to feign outrage over. who cares? overall, it's not doing anything malicious to you on a daily basis. oh no, the camera saw you driving to the grocery store. so what?
if the government wants to see where my car is, or read my emails, or look at my google searches - i really don't care. i've got nothing to hide and they'd quickly discover my life is not that interesting. nor are my driving habits.
people complain about privacy, but their entire lives are on facebook anyway from pictures of their newborn babies, to their houses, to all their contact info.
Two key points here.
Firstly not everyone does post their every movement on twitface for a variety of reasons including a desire for privacy.
Secondly when information is stored forever there is no way of knowing what conclusions might be drawn from it, correct or otherwise. But once a government system has drawn a conclusion about you just try getting it corrected if it proves to be wrong.
To take a simple example, let's say it's on record that you've done some Google searches about cancer. That's no big deal, perhaps you know someone with it, perhaps you have an academic interest in it, there are all sorts of reasons why you might be looking. Now let's say 12 months later your central record shows that you bought a wig. That's no big deal, people buy wigs for all sorts of reasons. But if the two are put together one might conclude that perhaps you have cancer and have lost your hair as a result of the chemotherapy. You might not object to the government knowing you are undergoing chemotherapy but what if your insurance company concludes you're now a high risk patient despite your interest in cancer being academic and your wig purchase being for a fancy dress party? Now the collection and collation of information becomes a whole lot more sinister.