Online Privacy Is a Right, Not a Luxury

Weeks after pitching this story to my editor, I had the disorienting experience of seeing a near-identical headline in the New York Times, penned by none other than Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Great minds think alike, it seems, and I believe Pichai is on the right track. By and large people have started to demand better privacy protections for everyone, and even holding companies that fail to protect their privacy to account. The problem is, I don't believe Pichai goes far enough.

When we don't view privacy as a right, it risks becoming a checkbox on a laundry list of features at exorbitant prices. When that happens, the entire industry fails the consumer. Pichai calls for legislation and smarter data-gathering practices, but what we really need is a total overhaul of the internet, led by companies like Apple and Google.

Granted, there's always been a certain connection between wealth and privacy. If you're rich, you can live in a big house with high walls. You can afford to put that house out in the country, far from other people. You can pay for the car, and the gas, and the car insurance to get to and from that house. You could even pay for a high-tech home security system. The difference today is that the wealthy aren't paying for an extra level of privacy, they're paying to not have their privacy eroded further. In security circles, it's often said that "if it's free, you're the product." I think it's more accurate to say that if you can't afford to pay, then you're the product.

Free Services, Pricey Devices

Apple has a hard-earned reputation for security and privacy, particularly on iOS. Despite that, the company long shied away from making privacy and security a major talking point. It would come up now and then, an ad or billboard here and there, but the Apple event in March, 2019 changed that. Privacy was a key talking point for each and every product. I have a collection of screenshots on my desktop of the black screens and white text that read out proclamations like "Apple doesn't allow advertisers to track you" and "Apple doesn't know how much you paid for it."

That's good. I don't want Apple to know those things or let advertisers track me. The implication is, however, that only by paying for Apple products can I access this lifestyle where I'm not tracked and profiled constantly. If I can't afford an iPhone, then I don't get privacy. Or rather, if I can't afford $699 for a now-dated iPhone 8 or (god help me) $999 or more for an iPhone XS, I don't get privacy.

There are many good and worthy Android devices out there, but until the release of the Pixel 3a Google failed to bring robust and affordable smartphones to market. Too often, Android users have to trade away security features, like NFC payments or fingerprint readers, in order to get a phone that would fit within a reasonable budget. Android phones from outside the big G also have major tradeoffs, with manufacturers sometimes delaying the release of important security updates or introducing their own vulnerabilities. I believe that may be changing, but hardcore privacy advocates will tell you that using a Google phone is surrendering any semblance of privacy. In a future column, I'll detail my own comical experiences trying to de-Google an Android phone.

Beyond the Hegemony

Perhaps in response to rising anxiety about how much big tech knows about our lives, a new crop of devices designed from the ground up to be open-source and privacy-respecting is on the rise. Purism is a company that offers the Librem line of Linux-based laptops built with privacy and security in mind. As with Apple, however, it comes at a cost. The Librem laptop starts at around $1,399, which is pricier than Apple's cheapest laptop. Librem is also working to introduce its first smartphone, called the Librem 5. Since it's unreleased, I have no idea if it's any good, but I do know the preorder price is $649, which is less than the newest iPhone but still 50 percent more than the cheapest iPhone, the $499 iPhone 7.

Privacy hardliners occasionally call for consumers to build their own devices, and learn the joys of Linux. This too has a cost, but an invisible one. If you have a problem, you won't be able to go to an Apple store and may not even find documentation online. Instead, you'll have to trawl through forum posts. If you aren't already comfortable working in the command line, writing your own code, or mucking around in the guts of an operating system you'll have to take the time to learn. And time is money—especially if you're an hourly wage or gig employee. While there are many free or open-source alternatives to major software tools, working on platforms other than industry standard can make your job that much more difficult.

The price of a new computer is already pretty hefty, and adding these invisible costs for the sake of privacy and security is a heavy burden. That's especially true when you can get an excellent Chromebook, brought to you by Google, for $250 and all the private data they can squeeze out of you.

Breaking free of privacy-eroding systems also has a social cost. Not engaging on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can mean being cut off from an important way friends and family connect and stay connected. It can also hurt your career. I'm not happy about how Twitter has handled user privacy, nor with how it allows actual nazis to use its platform, but if I actually quit it altogether I'd lose a valuable avenue for connecting with readers and for spreading my work.

We Can't Tech Our Way Out

Along with privacy-promoting devices, recent years have also seen a rise in privacy-securing software. At least part of the reason why VPNs have become popular is the sense that more people are spying on you, turning your data into money without your knowledge.

Services like Abine Blur and DeleteMe go further. Blur, for a fee, will help you reduce the spread of personal information on the web by letting you hide it behind masked email addresses and disposable prepaid credit card numbers. DeleteMe actively seeks out your information on data broker websites and, again for a fee, works to get that information removed. Taken together, these services can run you well over $150 a year.

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While I appreciate that there are companies out there actively seeking to remedy our situation, I believe it is fundamentally unfair that consumers have to pay extra for the privacy that is their right as human beings. It shouldn't be necessary to pay extra to maintain the level of privacy that should be intrinsic to everyone.

Privacy Is a Right, Not a Feature

The tech industry is driven heavily by novelty; by building and marketing the thing that everyone suddenly wants. First it was touch-screen phones, then app stores, then (briefly) 3D TV, then (also briefly?) VR, and so on. I fear that privacy has become the next new thing, and instead of fundamentally fixing our devices and infrastructure to assure privacy, we'll simply pay a premium for what should be our right.

As with climate change, corporations and consumers alike benefited from an unsustainable process, and now we have to face the consequences. We can continue down this path, where only the wealthiest will be worthy of remaining untracked by an ever-growing cornucopia of corporations buying and trading our personal information, but it will poison us. Trading personal information for services has had a hand in many of our modern ills: data breaches, mass surveillance, and election interference—to name just a few.

Instead of this toxicity, the corporations that acquired that wealth and the governments that allowed them to flourish need to invest in the systems that made the information age a success. We need devices people can actually afford that won't be subsidized at the expense of their privacy. We need a new internet, built with privacy-securing foundations that will enable a new generation of services and technologies.

I don't know how we get there, but I that know nobody should take what's ours and sell it back to us.