Why is privacy so important? and why is it such a big deal that this data is being collected from me?

you may be thinking...

cartoon cat with thought bubble that reads 'i have nothing to hide, so I don't care what kind of data is being collected from me!'

but this isn't true!

the word 'everyone' written with cut out ransom letters

has something they
don't want others to
know about them

you might also be thinking...

cartoon cat with thought bubble that reads 'these companies already know everything about me, privacy is dead anyway there's no point in trying to stop it from happening...'

but this isn't true either!

As law professor Neil Richards says in his book Why Privacy Matters:

magnifying glass with the quote 'Privacy is best thought of not as some measurable and vanishing thing, but as an ongoing conversation about social power - specifically about the social power conferred by human information.' written inside it
privacy is fundamentally about power
file folder that has a piece of paper in it that says 'the more privacy we have, the more control we have over what others know about us'

We don't know
how our information
may be used against us in
the future, so by protecting
more of our privacy now,
the more power we are
giving to our future (and
present!) selves.

One of the most obvious reasons as to why privacy is so important is that it prevents unauthorized and unwanted access to our personal information. black cat poking its head in from the side of the screen next to text that reads 'the internet stores vast quantities of infotmation, all of which can be exposed through data breaches or other unscrupulous means at any time.'
the less information that is collected and stored about us, the less of a risk we are at for this happening
illustration of a black cat sitting on top of a roman style column, next to a paragraph that reads 'another equally important, and possibly less obvious, reason as to why privacy is so important is because it protects our democratic institutions and other fundamental human rights.
Corporations, governments, and other organizations can use the vast amounts of information available to analyze overall trends in the public sphere.

This information can then help them use targeted advertising to manipulate public opinion or even influence elections.

pixel speech bubble that reads 'digital privacy also ensures our first amendment rights' illustration of black cat holding up a sign that says 'it is vital for a functioning democracy that citizens feel they can express their ideas without fear of retaliation'

Decreasing the amount of information that governments have about their citizens' personal lives mitigates the risk that they will use that information to suppress dissenting voices or try to prevent them from exercising their other democratic rights.

illustration of multiple overlapping muticoored hands rising up form the bottom of the screen