In the “Why Privacy Matters” TED Talk, reporter Glenn Greenwald argues that a lack of privacy is dangerous, even for those of us who think we have nothing to hide.

At this point in our lives, we have heard the “privacy” talk all too many times, almost so many times that the concept has lost all meaning. While we are aware that our technology is in a sense “watching” us, many of us naturally believe that as long as we act socially acceptably, we are in the clear. Greenwald, however, disagrees. Greenwald argues that that mentality works under the assumption that the world can be divided into two groups of people, “good” people who undergo normal experiences, and “bad” criminals/terrorists who must be watched. He notes that this mindset is similarly self-deprecating, as us “good” people are essentially willing to make ourselves harmless and uninteresting enough to believe the government won’t care what we’re doing. 

Greenwald goes on to mention that the people who say privacy isn’t that important don’t actually believe it themselves. While many tech bigwigs may advise others to simply “not to do anything they don’t want other people to find out about,” their actions speak otherwise. Take Mark Zuckerburg for example. Zuckerburg announced in a 2010 interview that privacy was “no longer a social norm,” and then proceeded to spend $30 million to purchase a house, in addition to four adjacent homes, to ensure a huge zone of privacy. Pretty ironic.  

It’s scary to think that the people who are the most knowledgeable about these data surveillance systems are the ones who seem to value privacy the most in their own lives. It’s very hypocritical for these moguls to tell people that privacy “doesn’t matter as long as you’re not doing anything wrong,” and then take extreme measures to ensure their own privacy. Does that imply that they think they’re doing something wrong? I believe much of the reason average people don’t seem to care much about privacy and data surveillance is because we aren’t educated on the topic. It seems as though no one is being truly transparent about how much information the internet takes from us, because the people who seem to know the most about data surveillance obviously don’t want us to grow concerned. That being said, I feel like increasing awareness and making internet users, teens especially, more knowledgeable about where their data is going is the first step.