Privacy Harm Is Harm(eff.org)
eff.org
Privacy Harm Is Harm
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/privacy-harm-harm
37 comments
related, in germany or the EU, courts have established that the mere publication of private information, and the associated loss of control (that is not knowing who was able to access that information) already constitutes harm, even if no other use or abuse actually happened. the mere potential that private information could be abused is enough.
I respect EFF for fighting the good fight. And its direly needed.
But, having spent a couple of years in the privacy space. People choose convenience over privacy 10/10 times. No amount of cookie banners, privacy notices and user consent are going to change that. There are so many cases of data abuse by EVs, Governments, etc. once you dig a little deeper than the surface
But, having spent a couple of years in the privacy space. People choose convenience over privacy 10/10 times. No amount of cookie banners, privacy notices and user consent are going to change that. There are so many cases of data abuse by EVs, Governments, etc. once you dig a little deeper than the surface
Oh yeah. Regimes also figured this out. Make the preferred outcome the most convenient, delay or hide the negative feedback, and there we go, please choose the system on their own volition.
It’s because companies deliberately make the privacy option constant friction. When the options are “yes” and “ask me again repeatedly” it’s not surprising people eventually give up and just say yes to everything.
It needs to be part of the law that companies are simply not allowed to abuse your data like they are currently. The GDPR was a good start, but it needs to keep going much further.
It needs to be part of the law that companies are simply not allowed to abuse your data like they are currently. The GDPR was a good start, but it needs to keep going much further.
I disagree with the tacit assumption here, which is that a license plate is private information.
Driving a car on a public road is a public, social act, which requires licensing and abiding by numerous rules.
A license plate is a token of registration in a public database, required to be displayed. Registration is required because people can cause enormous harm with a vehicle directly, and also use a vehicle for fleeing from the scene of a crime. Not to mention that vehicles can be stolen.
If license plates are private information, then I'm violating privacy by writing down the license plate of a vehicle that is fleeing from a hit-and-run.
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
If you want a vehicle that lets you go wherever you want and do whatever you want without being identified by your vehicle, use a scooter or bicycle or any other unregistered, unlicensed form of transportation.
If you can't get me to care about this "privacy" issue, your narrative is screwed, because I'm in a vehemently pro-freedom libertarian demographic.
Driving a car on a public road is a public, social act, which requires licensing and abiding by numerous rules.
A license plate is a token of registration in a public database, required to be displayed. Registration is required because people can cause enormous harm with a vehicle directly, and also use a vehicle for fleeing from the scene of a crime. Not to mention that vehicles can be stolen.
If license plates are private information, then I'm violating privacy by writing down the license plate of a vehicle that is fleeing from a hit-and-run.
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
If you want a vehicle that lets you go wherever you want and do whatever you want without being identified by your vehicle, use a scooter or bicycle or any other unregistered, unlicensed form of transportation.
If you can't get me to care about this "privacy" issue, your narrative is screwed, because I'm in a vehemently pro-freedom libertarian demographic.
This is one of those things that's annoying to talk about, reason about, and legislate against because our intuition fails us when thinking about emergent behaviors. Some examples:
1. OKAY: Telling your boss that you saw his car with his license plate on the freeway.
2. WORSE BUT STILL NOT BAD: Telling some friends and coworkers how crazy it is that you ran into your boss's car on the freeway.
3. NOT OKAY: Using a camera network to report on your boss's license plate location in real time.
4. VERY NOT OKAY: Using that extra information to conclude that his wife is pregnant and that he's job searching, selling him out at your current employer for some financial advantage.
5. EVEN WORSE: Doing that to literally everyone, coupled with a side of illegal and scammy advertisements just for good measure.
Our society depends heavily on some things staying reasonably private. You're right a single piece of license plate information isn't that important. What's happening though is some combination of:
1. Attempting to combat companies who don't give a rip about privacy and are keen to exploit loopholes (and for a host of other reasons), the law is stricter than it needs to be.
2. Once somebody else has committed a felony you usually have a lot more leeway with respect to your ensuing actions. Unless you've ever frowned in the direction of Trump, no prosecutor will hold that against you, and nearly every judge will throw it out. You'll want a stronger example.
1. OKAY: Telling your boss that you saw his car with his license plate on the freeway.
2. WORSE BUT STILL NOT BAD: Telling some friends and coworkers how crazy it is that you ran into your boss's car on the freeway.
3. NOT OKAY: Using a camera network to report on your boss's license plate location in real time.
4. VERY NOT OKAY: Using that extra information to conclude that his wife is pregnant and that he's job searching, selling him out at your current employer for some financial advantage.
5. EVEN WORSE: Doing that to literally everyone, coupled with a side of illegal and scammy advertisements just for good measure.
Our society depends heavily on some things staying reasonably private. You're right a single piece of license plate information isn't that important. What's happening though is some combination of:
1. Attempting to combat companies who don't give a rip about privacy and are keen to exploit loopholes (and for a host of other reasons), the law is stricter than it needs to be.
2. Once somebody else has committed a felony you usually have a lot more leeway with respect to your ensuing actions. Unless you've ever frowned in the direction of Trump, no prosecutor will hold that against you, and nearly every judge will throw it out. You'll want a stronger example.
To clarify: I don't care about the emergent behaviors to the extent that I would somehow make license plates private, which is a completely impractical idea.
The identifying info attached to license plates can be kept safeguarded. Even so, license plates can be used to fingerprint a vehicle. Eyewitnesses can attach identities to license plates; e.g. you can easily know the license plates of acquantances such as neigbors and recognize them in a different context.
Some kind of technological solution of nonce license plates. They would have to use display technology, making them fragile, poorly visible, prone to various malfunctions.
The identifying info attached to license plates can be kept safeguarded. Even so, license plates can be used to fingerprint a vehicle. Eyewitnesses can attach identities to license plates; e.g. you can easily know the license plates of acquantances such as neigbors and recognize them in a different context.
Some kind of technological solution of nonce license plates. They would have to use display technology, making them fragile, poorly visible, prone to various malfunctions.
I think lots of these issues are scale issues. Most people agree having some sort of weapon is fine up to a point.. that point may be a knife or a rifle but most folks probably think private citizens shouldn’t have tactical nuclear weapons.
Likewise, license plates are fine, full real-time surveillance of all movement in your country probably not great and not something the public wants.
Almost of these slippery slope issues are scaling problems, especially in privacy. Tracking people with cookies at your site, probably fine, using third party cookies to track everything your visit on the internet, maybe less great. Etc etc.
Legislating scale seems to be something that is particularly difficult since it’s easily argued, as you did, that’s it’s not inherently bad.
Likewise, license plates are fine, full real-time surveillance of all movement in your country probably not great and not something the public wants.
Almost of these slippery slope issues are scaling problems, especially in privacy. Tracking people with cookies at your site, probably fine, using third party cookies to track everything your visit on the internet, maybe less great. Etc etc.
Legislating scale seems to be something that is particularly difficult since it’s easily argued, as you did, that’s it’s not inherently bad.
The thing is, motor vehicles are not people, and license plates are not faces.
When you write down a license plate number you're not surveilling the owner of the car. The privacy being talked about here is being lost in the crowd—you're not protected from someone looking for your license plate but you are protected against some corporation or the authorities knowing everywhere you go in real time with perfect accuracy and recall.
I'll summarize your argument: You don't have privacy in public.
I agree.
I agree.
The Supreme Court has weighed in on this with a little more nuance in their decision in Katz v. United States:
“What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.”
This “lack of privacy in public” absolutism would mean that there would never be certiorari granted for these types of cases in the first place.
Reductionist at best, IMO
See also United States v Jones, Carpenter v United States
“What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.”
This “lack of privacy in public” absolutism would mean that there would never be certiorari granted for these types of cases in the first place.
Reductionist at best, IMO
See also United States v Jones, Carpenter v United States
I'm not one to promote AI, but when you suck at summarizing this bad, maybe give that a shot.
You have lots of privacy in public.
You don't get to legally conceal the identifying marker attached to a two-ton murder weapon on wheels that you either own, rented, borrowed or stole.
That's it.
My comment even mentions that you have options if you want an unmarked wheeled vehicle for staying as private as possible while yet locomoting at a decent pace.
You have lots of privacy in public.
You don't get to legally conceal the identifying marker attached to a two-ton murder weapon on wheels that you either own, rented, borrowed or stole.
That's it.
My comment even mentions that you have options if you want an unmarked wheeled vehicle for staying as private as possible while yet locomoting at a decent pace.
I don’t think the lack of privacy of the commons means it’s fine to stalk people.
In some abstract sense yes, but this doesn't mean that every moment of our lives when we leave our private home should be surveilled and recorded and analyzed for potential use by whoever is in power at any point in the future.
Not suggesting you are saying that, but there's a spectrum of what it means for behavior to be public.
Sure, my location is technically public in the sense that sometimes people see me when I go somewhere. But I would much rather not always be recorded with gps location and video and audio to be stored forever and available to those in power.
Not suggesting you are saying that, but there's a spectrum of what it means for behavior to be public.
Sure, my location is technically public in the sense that sometimes people see me when I go somewhere. But I would much rather not always be recorded with gps location and video and audio to be stored forever and available to those in power.
> If you can't get me to care about this "privacy" issue, your narrative is screwed, because I'm in a vehemently pro-freedom libertarian demographic.
your assertion of credentials is thoroughly countered by the information which is shared in your profile.
your assertion of credentials is thoroughly countered by the information which is shared in your profile.
I have not made an assertion of "credentials"; I have no idea what sort of inferential garden path you are on.
You're claiming that someone can't possibly be a pro-freedom libertarian if they choose to put some links in their HN profile. That's... a stretch.
You're coercing EFF's point (corporations are tracking people's movements and building a database of people's whereabouts and connections using license plate scanners, and that's an issue) into a very different one (license plates should be a private information).
Of course, that leads you to a flawed conclusion.
> because I'm in a vehemently pro-freedom libertarian demographic.
That demographic hasn't had a very good track record on privacy recently, has it?
Of course, that leads you to a flawed conclusion.
> because I'm in a vehemently pro-freedom libertarian demographic.
That demographic hasn't had a very good track record on privacy recently, has it?
my license plate is only relevant if an accident happens or i violate some traffic law. in the same way that others involved in the accident will want me to reveal my identity which is not public either. in a perfect world where everyone is honest and no one makes mistakes, we would not even need license plates. but that does not mean that other information that can be deduced from the license plate, such as the time and location or my route, also my home and my workplace, should be available to anyone who asks for it.
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You can't just say that anything you don't personally like equals harm.
I get the feeling you’re saying this because the harm caused by privacy loss is complicated, uncertain, time offset, etc, while “harm” feels to you like losing $100 or getting punched. You should think about the 1960s civil rights movement. Imagine you’re in the midst of it, without the hindsight of settled history, with actually many authority figures telling all these silly “activists” to get a real job and stop making such a fuss about something we all got on fine without until they started on their tantrum. What thought process would you need in order to correctly analyze whether the things being fought against were genuinely harms? What is the result of applying that thought process to privacy?
This is, by the way, playing catch-up, privacy has been an internationally recognized human right for many years. I’m just trying to help you see human rights from a perspective other than “something somebody is ordering me to care about”.
This is, by the way, playing catch-up, privacy has been an internationally recognized human right for many years. I’m just trying to help you see human rights from a perspective other than “something somebody is ordering me to care about”.
I'm sayint it because it doesn't cause harm. If you allowing fuzzy stuff like that to be harm does not make sense to me and is a slippery slope. The examples of "harms" the article uses are that law enforcement could enforce the law (which is not a harm), or that law enforcement could commit harm using information (which is already illegal). I wasn't alive in the 60s so I can't relate to your example. "Human rights" are not a linear thing. There is no reason to adopt one because another company has it. It should be decided by the people of the country themselves without inside influence.
Don't they state pretty clearly the actual harm that is occurring due to undermined privacy?
They make up their own definitive of harm that includes that. The article is about how the definition of harm the law uses, doesn't match how they would like to see it defined.
You do not understand how the law works, and you are making a fool of yourself.
They are in the middle of asking a court to clarify what the law means by the word "harm". That is not settled as yet. Things like that get settled by litigation. They are taking a position in such litigation.
They are in the middle of asking a court to clarify what the law means by the word "harm". That is not settled as yet. Things like that get settled by litigation. They are taking a position in such litigation.
We've lost a great deal of nuance in our discourse by taking our previous richly varied and gradated universe of wrongnesses and projecting them all onto the "safety/harm/consent" axis.
It's as if we're no longer capable of conceiving of something that is bad independent of that thing causing harm. Consequently, in order to express sophisticated moral concepts in our guttural pidgin of a moral vocabulary, we need to use combinations of words that are facial absurdities, like "privacy harm is harm".
It's as if we're no longer capable of conceiving of something that is bad independent of that thing causing harm. Consequently, in order to express sophisticated moral concepts in our guttural pidgin of a moral vocabulary, we need to use combinations of words that are facial absurdities, like "privacy harm is harm".
You could switch the analogy and just harm people that remove your privacy. I'm much more fond of that route.
There's more words than just the headline. You don't have to agree with them, but they're there.
If you understood my comment you would understand that I don't agree with them. If you are trying to passively aggressively call me out for not reading reading article (of which I did), do so directly.
What is there to understand about it? You don't make an argument, just a shallow dismissal. There's nothing about your comment that indicates you read TFA.
You could engage with the article and explain why you don't agree with the argument that is being made - or you could simply leave no comment at all. That is the hidden subtext of the comment you are replying to here.
The article made a case. You didn't refute it or make your own, you just said "nuh uh".
>you just said "nuh uh".
The article doesn't make a case. They are just saying "nuh uh" to the decision the court made.
The article doesn't make a case. They are just saying "nuh uh" to the decision the court made.
There's a 30ish page (not including all the legal template) brief explaining their arguement. How is that not making a case? There's even a excerpt from the brief going over one of their arguments.
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