r/privacy • u/SecretFirst0309 • 2d ago
discussion Is convenience killing our Right to Privacy?
Most of us trade data for convenience every day, location tracking for maps, saving passwords in our browser, cloud backups for photos, and using autofill for payments. It feels harmless until we realise how much of our identity is stored on someone else’s servers.
Every device in our lives is quietly collecting data. Laws like GDPR and India’s new DPDP Act exist, but enforcement is patchy. Once your data leaks, there’s no way to “get it back”. It’s permanent exposure.
How do you balance privacy vs convenience? Do you use privacy-first tools or do you just accept that surveillance is a part of modern life?
47
u/cheap_dates 2d ago
Big Data employees psychologists to figure out new and devious ways to get you to trade your civil liberties for the sake of convenience.
The problem with laws is that they often bypass the ballot box and are enacted to enable business interests.
You have to determine your own trade offs and be willing to push back or walk if it doesn't sound right. I have been on four class action lawsuits in the past year alone because of data breaches and I consider myself very privacy oriented. The only person who takes "your privacy seriously" is you. The rest is just corporate Happy Talk.
6
u/Wealist 2d ago
Exactly convenience always wins in the short term, but once data’s leaked, it’s irreversible. Laws help but weak enforcement means the burden falls on the individual
3
u/cheap_dates 1d ago
"but once data’s leaked, it’s irreversible".
Well said. You cannot unring a bell.
2
u/apokrif1 1d ago
Big Data employees psychologists to figure out new and devious ways to get you to trade your civil liberties for the sake of convenience.
Any info on this?
26
u/sakurakuran93 2d ago
I recently had this discussion with a couple of friends. We basically came to the conclusion that the convenience they are pushing is no longer worth it. We have reached a time that we all sort of had enough of the internet, the constant data breaches and the fact that our entire lives are online for absolute no reason.
Yes, taking notes in a notebook is not an easy thing but it’s 100% private. Printing the best photos from holidays, vacations, parties etc and making an album was the way a few years back - we don’t need thousands of photos on drives that we never look at. Same with sharing our entire lives on socials.
The internet was meant to become this the moment big corporations started putting their claws on it and pushing socials and this and that. And it’s everywhere. Download this app to get a discount and points on your coffee, email me my receipt etc. they make us addicted to points collection and karma etc. They lie about deleting our accounts and they still store the data. like why? People are just tired as we have became data.
The only way we can have complete privacy is by doing a lot of things the analog way and still we are being under constant surveillance the moment we leave home. It’s not just the devices we are using at home. For example, in the UK the average person, the moment they will leave home to go anywhere, they will be caught a minimum of 97 times on CCTV that day. Thinking about this, compared to how it was, let’s say back in the late 90s to mid 00s is just crazy.
So in the name of convenience, we have literally put ourselves in their hands and didn’t think a second time of the ramifications
6
2
u/Top_Lake6057 2d ago
I’m so with you on this, convenience is just not worth the privacy hit anymore, especially with all the data breaches and surveillance.
I was telling a friend about this group I found online called the Authenticity Alliance, and they’re doing some cool stuff to tackle things like phishing and scams. They’re building what they call “domains of authenticity” to make the internet safer.
Basically, they’re creating online spaces where your identity is verified through a super secure system, kind of like a digital ID that’s certified by a trusted authority, so scammers can’t easily fake who they are. This cuts down on phishing emails and fake websites that trick people into giving up their info.
They also use something called Quiet Enjoyment Infrastructure, which is like setting up “buildings” online with strict rules—like digital building codes—to keep out bots and fraudsters. It’s all about making sure the platforms we use are transparent and give us control over our data, not the corporations.
I’m really excited to see how this plays out because it feels like a legit way to make the internet less of a scam-fest.
1
u/grilled_pc 1d ago
This sounds fantastic! I've come to realize as well that the cost of convienience is just not worth the complete and utter loss of privacy anymore.
Sure i can listen to every song ever on spotify. But with new aged verification laws coming in, i'll have to submit my ID to spotify's "trusted verifier" to check me? Absolutely not!
So i'm going back to an ipod. At least this way i have control over my music, i get to appreciate it far more and i don't need to have my privacy disrespected like this in the process. Is it slightly more inconvienient? Yes. But i managed just fine for years prior to spotify. No reason why i can't go back.
0
u/spiteful-vengeance 2d ago
taking notes in a notebook is not an easy thing
What?
6
u/SeeTigerLearn 2d ago
Mildly sarcastic, but saying write down important details, like passwords, in a physical notebook rather than using some password vault service.
3
6
u/yaky-dev 2d ago
Convenience is killing a lot of rights, more than just privacy.
Amazon with heaps of junk and 2-day shipping is more convenient that finding local retailer or going to a physical store; and Amazon's abuse of warehouse and tracking of drivers is known.
Uber/Lyft/rideshare is convenient because of good apps, while any responsibility and liability is shifted to drivers (which totals the payments to something like $2-3 an hour IIRC)
Spotify is convenient because of access to so much music, but pays artists pennies.
If it's cheap, it's at someone's expense. And if it's expensive, it's probably still at someone's expense, but inflated by the middleman.
1
u/grilled_pc 1d ago
I'd argue that convenience is killing people as well.
Have you see how horrific the workplace conditions are in those amazon "fulfillment" centres? They are like that so they can honor the same day shipping. It's how its possible. Workers suffer tremendously so we get same day shipping convenience.
2
u/St3lla_0nR3dd1t 2d ago
Two things
Exactly how does anyone know that data protection laws are actually being followed?
In olden times, we lived in small groups where everyone knew everything about everyone one else because it was impossible to hide.
Now there are more people we are just finding a new balance, the right to privacy was just a temporary aberration
1
u/Thalimet 2d ago
While information contained in breaches are out in the wild, there’s quite a few things you can do to improve your privacy from companies who do have to worry about compliance.
I do the following:
- unique email (alias with proton pass) and password for every account
- 2FA on everyplace possible, preferring Authenticator or passkey over SMS or email
- incogni (or one of many alternatives) to issue take down requests for data brokers
- Apple user for day to day driving
- in the process or transitioning away from one drive and iCloud to proton drive
- use a vpn to Canada enough that Google thinks I live in Canada and serves me local news from Canada lol
- use unique debit cards for each merchant online I do business with (getsequence.io or alternative)
Also evaluating using Kagi for search to further enhance
All of this with significant improvements in privacy.
1
1
u/LakesRed 2d ago edited 2d ago
Not necessarily because a lot of these things can be end to end encrypted. What's breaking privacy is how good the non-private options are, such as Google Maps, which takes advantage of crowdsourcing to see how busy places are - which I find really useful.
You also have some ways to still make things relatively private even when using those (like turn off location history on Google so that not just any shoulder surfer or paranoid spouse can keep tabs on your every move for example) but of course it depends on your adversary. If it's law enforcement in an authoritarian regime, you're cooked no matter what you do unless you basically give up technology altogether. The example stops Google bombarding you with ads and recommendations based on where you've been and using the info for your interests/habits profiling, but it'd be foolish to assume that it stops them keeping their own private copy of your location history for the 3 letter lot.
Even though realistically no one at Google is interested in me as an individual and it's more a case of paying for services through targeted ads, for me there's a bit of a principle to it so my photos are backed up onto Ente, I use cryptee for notes (even though it's just boring stuff like how I set up a particular Linux distro etc), things like that as it's my business and I'm also protecting people who've not necessarily consented to their photos being shared with Google.
Tldr, imo it's individual. Absolute privacy and anonymity are dead if you use anything that connects to the internet these days. However you can be more or less private depending on your preferences of how to balance privacy with convenience and what your threats are. Even just going through Google's Privacy Checkup is probably doing more than most average users of a smartphone.
1
u/TRILLION-AIRE 1d ago
I can't imagine the horrors of training LLM models on private information of people. Ai companies and big tech will basically know the next move we are likely to do even before we think about it.
2
u/Flat-Employment-7369 1d ago
Thanks for making me paranoid, I'll never be able to use chatgpt the same
1
u/SaveDnet-FRed0 1d ago
There are a lot of privacy respecting services that are both convenient to use and don't come with much of a negative trade off beyond finding out the alternatives are in fact a thing and maybe the first time setup and moving all your stuff
(Ex. For E-mail you can use Proton Mail witch is just as good as GMail [minus that the free plan only gives you up to 1GB of E-mail storage], for your browser you can use Firefox [or a fork there of] or if you need something chrome based Brave browser)
As for one your data is out there, you can go to every service and data broker that has your data and request one by one for them to remove it. But this is extremely consuming and some services will do shady things to hold onto your data requiring you to do extra work to make sure that it gets removed. The convenient alternative option is to use a data removal service to do all that for you, but you need to be careful about witch one you pick since some are effectively scams or go about removing your data in a lazy ways that can expose your data more, and they all cost a subscription fee to use the service.
It's also worth noting that a lot of the bad for privacy options do have ways to mitigate the amount of data they collect or have ways to protect that data in ways that would prevent the providers from using it, but for these services these are disabled by default, you have to dig threw pages upon pages of confusing settings pages, install add-in's / run 3ed party scrips to do so. It's also worth noting that for some privacy invasive services (Ex. YouTube) you can access them threw 3ed party frontends that will preserve your privacy but still let you use these services in a not-logged in manner.
1
1
u/Apart-Location-804 1d ago
I think most of us end up compromising without realizing it. I try to use privacy first tools when I can, like password managers, encrypted messaging, and VPNs, but for some things convenience wins. It is a constant trade off and being aware of what you are giving up is probably the best you can do.
1
u/OkActuator1742 19h ago
Privacy is important, but I don’t think we can ever have 100% control anymore. I just hope regulations get stronger while we enjoy the tech.
-16
2d ago
[deleted]
10
u/tarkinn 2d ago
Pseudo-poetic nonsense trying to relativize the data greed of companies.
You say „my data is not my identity“, which is also nonsense. My data reflects my identity and personality. I’m not my data but my data is me.
If you hadn’t mentioned several times that you work in tech, I would have know it either way.
2
2d ago
[deleted]
1
u/tarkinn 2d ago
I had the same suspicion. Either way such statements should be clarified, otherwise there may be people who actually believe them.
1
2d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Interesting_Gas_8869 1d ago
or the fact that reddit has this weird problem that if someone's got at least one downvote, they're gonna get more and more.
•
u/AutoModerator 2d ago
Hello u/SecretFirst0309, please make sure you read the sub rules if you haven't already. (This is an automatic reminder left on all new posts.)
Check out the r/privacy FAQ
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.