When Safety Costs Your Privacy
Across the globe, a wave of laws has been introduced or enacted with the stated purpose of protecting children from harmful online content and preventing crimes committed via encrypted messaging. For many politicians, the solution is simple: require identity verification for internet use and gain access to all messages before they are encrypted.
We often joke that politicians live in a different reality, so why should their solutions be any different? The problem is that we are all the ones who have to live with the consequences of their simplistic approaches.
It is a natural and undisputed fact that we all want our children to be safe and to prevent crime. This instinct makes us receptive to initiatives that promise to do just that, and politicians are adept at appealing to our altruistic nature. But what if these measures come at a steep cost to our privacy and fail to deliver on their promises?
The Illusion of Effectiveness
Consider Know Your Customer (KYC) rules, which require identity verification to open bank accounts. The goal is to stop fraud. Yet, bad actors still create fake accounts using stolen or fabricated information for various scams. The effectiveness of this is questioned in a ProPublica article, "How Foreign Scammers Use U.S. Banks to Fleece Americans," which details how foreign crime syndicates exploit these gaps.
These systems do not actually prevent criminal behavior. Instead, they create an extra hurdle that criminals are often happy to jump. This is why, despite added layers of regulation, the problem persists, showing these measures frequently fall short of their intended purpose. Criminals bypass these rules using stolen or synthetic identities.
A synthetic identity, which combines real and fake information, allows bad actors to create new accounts that do not immediately trigger fraud alerts because the information does not match a single real person's stolen data.
A similar illusion exists with online age verification, which is meant to protect children from harmful content. This sounds good in theory. However, determined individuals can easily bypass these checks in numerous ways or find other loopholes, making the system less a solution and more a superficial deterrent.
The Privacy Trade-Off
These measures are not just ineffective. They also erode our privacy. When we are forced to share personal data with corporations or governments, we open ourselves to misuse, hacks, and a loss of control. The National Public Data (NPD) data breach of 2024 serves as a potent reminder. Millions of people had their sensitive personal information exposed, and the consequences will be felt for years. Every time we hand over our data, we are gambling with its security.
The risks to our personal data are not theoretical. They are a constant and escalating threat. The problem is not limited to large-scale data breaches like the NPD incident. It is a pervasive issue that spans three key areas:
1. Corporate Negligence and Improper Storage
Many companies, from social media giants to small businesses, lack the resources, expertise, or perform the necessary due diligence to properly and consistently secure the data they collect. This negligence can create easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities. For instance, in a 2019 breach, Facebook was found to have stored hundreds of millions of user passwords in plain text, making them an easy target for hackers. This was not a sophisticated attack; it was a basic failure of data security.
2. Misuse by Corporations
Once a company has your data, it is difficult to control how it is used. Information collected for one purpose, such as age verification, can be repurposed to create detailed user profiles for targeted advertising or sold to third-party data brokers. This kind of dataveillance turns our personal lives into a commodity, eroding our right to privacy without providing any clear benefit to us.
3. Attractive Target for Bad Actors
Every piece of data collected by a company, government, or online service becomes a digital honeypot for cybercriminals. The more information that is aggregated in one place—names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers—the more valuable it becomes to hackers. A single successful breach can compromise the personal information of millions, leading to identity theft, financial fraud, and other long-term consequences for those affected.
Are There Better Solutions?
Instead of piling on more data collection, why not try something different? Here are two ideas:
- Education: Teach kids and parents how to navigate the online world safely. Knowledge is a powerful shield that does not require sacrificing personal information.
- Stronger Enforcement: Crack down on criminals using existing laws, rather than casting a wide net that ensnares everyone’s privacy.
These solutions shift the focus from a "collect it all" mentality to a more precise and effective strategy that values individual privacy.
Consider this analogy: installing security cameras in every room of your house might deter some burglars, but it also means living under constant surveillance, and it does not guarantee no one will break in. Is that really the safety we want?
The Bigger Picture
Our privacy is worth protecting. We should think critically about these trade-offs and push for solutions that keep our kids safe without turning us all into open books. There is a better way, and we just need to find it.
Remember, we may not have anything to hide, but everything to protect.
