That’s because Europe has actual experience with having their privacy invaded and it wasn’t just to show you relevant ads. During the war my grandparents burned letters and books after reading them. And they had nothing to hide either - and all of the ones they burned were perfectly innocent and legal… but even those can be taken out of context and used against you during a police investigation.
The UN formally declared privacy as a human right a few years after the war ended. Specifically in response to what happened during the war.
A lot of the data used by police to commit horrific crimes was collected before the war, for example they’d go into a cemetery home and find a list of people who attended a funeral six years ago, then arrest everyone who was there. You can’t wait for a government to start doing things like that - you have to stop the data from being collected in the first place.
Imagine how much worse it could be today, with so much more data collected and automated tools to analyse the data. Imagine if you lived in Russian occupied Ukraine right now - what data can Russia find about you? Do you have a brother serving in Ukraine’s army? Maybe your brother would defect if you were taken hostage…
That’s because Europe has actual experience with having their privacy invaded and it wasn’t just to show you relevant ads. During the war my grandparents burned letters and books after reading them. And they had nothing to hide either - and all of the ones they burned were perfectly innocent and legal… but even those can be taken out of context and used against you during a police investigation.
The UN formally declared privacy as a human right a few years after the war ended. Specifically in response to what happened during the war.
A lot of the data used by police to commit horrific crimes was collected before the war, for example they’d go into a cemetery home and find a list of people who attended a funeral six years ago, then arrest everyone who was there. You can’t wait for a government to start doing things like that - you have to stop the data from being collected in the first place.
Imagine how much worse it could be today, with so much more data collected and automated tools to analyse the data. Imagine if you lived in Russian occupied Ukraine right now - what data can Russia find about you? Do you have a brother serving in Ukraine’s army? Maybe your brother would defect if you were taken hostage…