A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md

   1 # A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe
   2
   3 by Richard Stallman, 2018-04-03
   4
   5 **The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet
   6 Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first
   7 place.**
   8
   9 Journalists have been asking me whether the revulsion against the
  10 abuse of
  11 [Facebook](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/31/big-data-lie-exposed-simply-blaming-facebook-wont-fix-reclaim-private-information)
  12 data could be a turning point for the campaign to recover
  13 privacy. That could happen, if the public makes its campaign broader
  14 and deeper.
  15
  16 Broader, meaning extending to all surveillance systems, not just
  17 [Facebook](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/facebook). Deeper,
  18 meaning to advance from regulating the use of data to regulating the
  19 accumulation of data. Because surveillance is so pervasive, restoring
  20 privacy is necessarily a big change, and requires powerful measures.
  21
  22 The surveillance imposed on us today far exceeds that of the Soviet
  23 Union. For freedom and democracy’s sake, we need to eliminate most of
  24 it. There are so many ways to use data to hurt people that the only
  25 safe database is the one that was never collected. Thus, instead of
  26 the EU’s approach of mainly regulating how personal data may be used
  27 (in its [General Data Protection Regulation](https://www.eugdpr.org/)
  28 or GDPR), I propose a law to stop systems from collecting personal
  29 data.
  30
  31 The robust way to do that, the way that can’t be set aside at the whim
  32 of a government, is to require systems to be built so as not to
  33 collect data about a person. The basic principle is that a system must
  34 be designed not to collect certain data, if its basic function can be
  35 carried out without that data.
  36
  37 Data about who travels where is particularly sensitive, because it is
  38 an ideal basis for repressing any chosen target. We can take the
  39 London trains and buses as a case for study.
  40
  41 The Transport for London digital payment card system centrally records
  42 the trips any given Oyster or bank card has paid for. When a passenger
  43 feeds the card digitally, the system associates the card with the
  44 passenger’s identity. This adds up to complete surveillance.
  45
  46 I expect the transport system can justify this practice under the
  47 GDPR’s rules. My proposal, by contrast, would require the system to
  48 stop tracking who goes where. The card’s basic function is to pay for
  49 transport. That can be done without centralising that data, so the
  50 transport system would have to stop doing so. When it accepts digital
  51 payments, it should do so through an anonymous payment system.
  52
  53 Frills on the system, such as the feature of letting a passenger
  54 review the list of past journeys, are not part of the basic function,
  55 so they can’t justify incorporating any additional surveillance.
  56
  57 These additional services could be offered separately to users who
  58 request them. Even better, users could use their own personal systems
  59 to privately track their own journeys.
  60
  61 Black cabs demonstrate that a system for hiring cars with drivers does
  62 not need to identify passengers. Therefore such systems should not be
  63 allowed to identify passengers; they should be required to accept
  64 privacy-respecting cash from passengers without ever trying to
  65 identify them.
  66
  67 However, convenient digital payment systems can also protect
  68 passengers’ anonymity and privacy. We have already developed one: [GNU
  69 Taler](https://taler.net/en/). It is designed to be anonymous for the
  70 payer, but payees are always identified. We designed it that way so as
  71 not to facilitate tax dodging. All digital payment systems should be
  72 required to defend anonymity using this or a similar method.
  73
  74 What about security? Such systems in areas where the public are
  75 admitted must be designed so they cannot track people. Video cameras
  76 should make a local recording that can be checked for the next few
  77 weeks if a crime occurs, but should not allow remote viewing without
  78 physical collection of the recording. Biometric systems should be
  79 designed so they only recognise people on a court-ordered list of
  80 suspects, to respect the privacy of the rest of us. An unjust state is
  81 more dangerous than terrorism, and too much security encourages an
  82 unjust state.
  83
  84 The EU’s GDPR regulations are well-meaning, but do not go very far. It
  85 will not deliver much privacy, because its rules are too lax. They
  86 permit collecting any data if it is somehow useful to the system, and
  87 it is easy to come up with a way to make any particular data useful
  88 for something.
  89
  90 The GDPR makes much of requiring users (in some cases) to give consent
  91 for the collection of their data, but that doesn’t do much
  92 good. System designers have become expert at manufacturing consent (to
  93 repurpose Noam Chomsky’s phrase). Most users consent to a site’s terms
  94 without reading them; a company that
  95 [required](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/29/londoners-wi-fi-security-herod-clause)
  96 users to trade their first-born child got consent from plenty of
  97 users. Then again, when a system is crucial for modern life, like
  98 buses and trains, users ignore the terms because refusal of consent is
  99 too painful to consider.
 100
 101 To restore privacy, we must stop surveillance before it even asks for
 102 consent.
 103
 104 Finally, don’t forget the software in your own computer. If it is the
 105 non-free software of Apple, Google or Microsoft, it [spies on you
 106 regularly](https://gnu.org/malware/). That’s because it is controlled
 107 by a company that won’t hesitate to spy on you. Companies tend to lose
 108 their scruples when that is profitable. By contrast, free (libre)
 109 software is [controlled by its
 110 users](https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html). That
 111 user community keeps the software honest.
 112
 113 Richard Stallman is president of the Free Software Foundation, which
 114 launched the development of a free/libre operating system GNU.
 115
 116 Copyright 2018 Richard Stallman. Released under [Creative Commons
 117 Attribution NoDerivatives License
 118 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/).  The original
 119 English version was published in [The
 120 Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-law-privacy-big-tech-surveillance)
 121 2018-04-03.