Privacy – The Underrated Human Right

"Everyone says they care about privacy, but people would give a DNA sample for a ‘free’ Big Mac." —Austin Hill

A few years ago, I shared my growing concerns about the erosion of online privacy with a friend. I passionately criticised the dominant business model on the internet, which essentially farms users to extract every possible piece of private data from them. My friend, an intelligent and tech-savvy individual, looked at my fervour with indulgence. Even if he somewhat shared my attachment to privacy, he saw its loss as inevitable, even necessary, to enjoy the conveniences of technology. Applications must track us to provide what we need on a silver platter. They also need to sell our data; otherwise, we would have to pay for their services, which we are reluctant to do.

Indeed, almost everything we observe on the internet today seems to prove him right. While some dull discussions about privacy or data protection laws might be happening, and we occasionally hear about activists fighting for these causes, the reality is that the vast majority of users share their privacy without any restraint or reflection on the consequences. To be fair, it’s not easy to avoid doing so. We are surrounded by technology designed to gather as much data as possible from the largest number of users as efficiently as possible.

Unfortunately, the dangers extend far beyond corporate surveillance. The risks posed by the private sector pale in comparison to the increasingly brazen state surveillance. The frog is being boiled slowly. We have gradually accepted prohibitions on cash payments above certain amounts and numerous exceptions to bank secrecy, ultimately leading to a complete lack of privacy in our relationships with the state, as tax authorities gain unrestricted access to our accounts. There is a pending law that will soon require reporting every transaction involving Bitcoin or other crypto-assets to the state, regardless of the transaction's value.

The only thing missing is a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), which would not only greatly facilitate the easy collection of vast amounts of information about every citizen's financial transactions but also allow for a true nightmare…, namely, money which is programmable at the individual level. Compared to this, the blunt instrument of interest rate adjustments look like a hammer next to a microprocessor. The state would gain some quite spooky tools for social engineering. Money with an expiry date, set arbitrarily, would be a handy tool to drive consumption. Money that only works in specific locations would help keep disobedient citizens in one place. To discipline the dissenters, there could also be money that can't be used to pay for certain products or to certain people. Add a solid social credit system with extra points for compliance on top of it, and we find ourselves in a dystopian episode of Black Mirror, only worse. The scope and scale of social engineering would then be limited only by the autocrat’s imagination.

Surprisingly many people seem to underestimate or fail to understand the importance of privacy. They overlook that we are talking about a fundamental human right, protected by constitutions and many international treaties, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. They fail to recognise that the day we lose our privacy will also be the last day of our freedom.

As Eric Hughes wrote in his famous 1993 manifesto, privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world. This concept, sometimes called informational autonomy, is essential for the functioning of a free society, especially in an increasingly digitised world. The right to privacy extends to most areas of private life. It particularly protects information about family life, health, intimate life, private homes, interests, and correspondence, including electronic communication. Financial life is also protected, including bank account balances and transaction details, shielding them not only from the prying eyes of our neighbours, but most of all from the public authorities who should not, in principle, collect information about our assets and transactions.

In contemporary legal systems, the right to privacy is not absolute. This means that the state can, in certain situations, infringe on our privacy and access protected information. However, this must be justified by another important protected public interest. Traditionally, such interests include state security, public safety, economic well-being, crime prevention, health protection, morality, or the protection of others' rights and freedoms. Any interference must not only be based on clear legal regulations but also be justified in each specific case. Jurisprudence provides further guidelines outlining the framework for such potential interference. Notably, there must exist a strict connection between the interference and the protected public interest. Also, the scope of the interference should not exceed what is necessary to protect that interest, and it should be subject to oversight by an independent court.

The problem today, however, is that states are trying to push the boundaries of permissible interference and often do so in violation of constitutional and treaty guarantees. Examples of such violations in Poland include laws allowing tax authorities unrestricted access to taxpayers' bank accounts. Similarly, laws on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism grant the state broad powers. The issue is not that these laws allow for privacy infringements when there is a risk of crime. The problem is that they permit the preventive collection of data on private transactions in vast databases without a direct link to any specific legal proceedings and without genuine judicial oversight.

A state that does not respect the right to privacy is, by definition, an authoritarian state. The tools for tracking citizens are a greater threat in the hands of the state than in the hands of corporations or even common criminals. Therefore, state actions, which step by step increase the scope of possible intrusions into privacy, should cause concern and opposition.

**Yet this is not happening. **This is especially evident in the sphere of financial privacy. We have accepted the deprivation of the right to use cash above a certain limit and the fact that bank secrecy has become an empty shell, with financial institutions reporting about us essentially without our control or even knowledge. We watch helplessly as regulations limiting the privacy of cryptocurrency transactions are enacted under the guise of "consumer protection." We do not oppose when officials feel they should regulate the use of open communication protocols for private transactions or private tools for storing cryptocurrency savings. Finally, there is no significant protest when the head of the European Central Bank announces the introduction of the European CBDC, a technology promoted under the appealing name "digital euro," which, in a rather chilling way, is awe-inspiring given its surveillance and control capabilities.

This civic passivity likely stems from the belief that since we live in democratic and lawful societies, nothing can really threaten us. This belief, however, overlooks the thin line between democratic order and authoritarianism. It also ignores that state lawlessness occurs daily even in democratic and lawful states. By allowing states to cut back on the right to privacy, we are embarking on a dangerous slippery slope, at the end of which lies a grim vision of totalitarianism.

#privacy #Bitcoin