1 # SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
2 # Copyright (C) YEAR Richard Stallman
3 # This file is distributed under the same license as the A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe package.
4 # FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR.
8 "Project-Id-Version: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe n/a\n"
9 "POT-Creation-Date: 2018-04-17 04:24+0200\n"
10 "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
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19 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:2
20 msgid "A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe"
24 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:4
25 msgid "by Richard Stallman, 2018-04-03"
29 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:8
32 "**The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet\n"
33 "Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first\n"
38 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:15
40 "Journalists have been asking me whether the revulsion against the abuse of "
41 "[Facebook](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/31/big-data-lie-exposed-simply-blaming-facebook-wont-fix-reclaim-private-information) "
42 "data could be a turning point for the campaign to recover privacy. That "
43 "could happen, if the public makes its campaign broader and deeper."
47 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:21
49 "Broader, meaning extending to all surveillance systems, not just "
50 "[Facebook](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/facebook). Deeper, meaning "
51 "to advance from regulating the use of data to regulating the accumulation of "
52 "data. Because surveillance is so pervasive, restoring privacy is necessarily "
53 "a big change, and requires powerful measures."
57 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:30
59 "The surveillance imposed on us today far exceeds that of the Soviet "
60 "Union. For freedom and democracy’s sake, we need to eliminate most of "
61 "it. There are so many ways to use data to hurt people that the only safe "
62 "database is the one that was never collected. Thus, instead of the EU’s "
63 "approach of mainly regulating how personal data may be used (in its [General "
64 "Data Protection Regulation](https://www.eugdpr.org/) or GDPR), I propose a "
65 "law to stop systems from collecting personal data."
69 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:36
71 "The robust way to do that, the way that can’t be set aside at the whim of a "
72 "government, is to require systems to be built so as not to collect data "
73 "about a person. The basic principle is that a system must be designed not to "
74 "collect certain data, if its basic function can be carried out without that "
79 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:40
81 "Data about who travels where is particularly sensitive, because it is an "
82 "ideal basis for repressing any chosen target. We can take the London trains "
83 "and buses as a case for study."
87 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:45
89 "The Transport for London digital payment card system centrally records the "
90 "trips any given Oyster or bank card has paid for. When a passenger feeds the "
91 "card digitally, the system associates the card with the passenger’s "
92 "identity. This adds up to complete surveillance."
96 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:52
98 "I expect the transport system can justify this practice under the GDPR’s "
99 "rules. My proposal, by contrast, would require the system to stop tracking "
100 "who goes where. The card’s basic function is to pay for transport. That can "
101 "be done without centralising that data, so the transport system would have "
102 "to stop doing so. When it accepts digital payments, it should do so through "
103 "an anonymous payment system."
107 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:56
109 "Frills on the system, such as the feature of letting a passenger review the "
110 "list of past journeys, are not part of the basic function, so they can’t "
111 "justify incorporating any additional surveillance."
115 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:60
117 "These additional services could be offered separately to users who request "
118 "them. Even better, users could use their own personal systems to privately "
119 "track their own journeys."
123 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:66
125 "Black cabs demonstrate that a system for hiring cars with drivers does not "
126 "need to identify passengers. Therefore such systems should not be allowed to "
127 "identify passengers; they should be required to accept privacy-respecting "
128 "cash from passengers without ever trying to identify them."
132 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:73
134 "However, convenient digital payment systems can also protect passengers’ "
135 "anonymity and privacy. We have already developed one: [GNU "
136 "Taler](https://taler.net/en/). It is designed to be anonymous for the payer, "
137 "but payees are always identified. We designed it that way so as not to "
138 "facilitate tax dodging. All digital payment systems should be required to "
139 "defend anonymity using this or a similar method."
143 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:83
145 "What about security? Such systems in areas where the public are admitted "
146 "must be designed so they cannot track people. Video cameras should make a "
147 "local recording that can be checked for the next few weeks if a crime "
148 "occurs, but should not allow remote viewing without physical collection of "
149 "the recording. Biometric systems should be designed so they only recognise "
150 "people on a court-ordered list of suspects, to respect the privacy of the "
151 "rest of us. An unjust state is more dangerous than terrorism, and too much "
152 "security encourages an unjust state."
156 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:89
158 "The EU’s GDPR regulations are well-meaning, but do not go very far. It will "
159 "not deliver much privacy, because its rules are too lax. They permit "
160 "collecting any data if it is somehow useful to the system, and it is easy to "
161 "come up with a way to make any particular data useful for something."
165 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:100
167 "The GDPR makes much of requiring users (in some cases) to give consent for "
168 "the collection of their data, but that doesn’t do much good. System "
169 "designers have become expert at manufacturing consent (to repurpose Noam "
170 "Chomsky’s phrase). Most users consent to a site’s terms without reading "
171 "them; a company that "
172 "[required](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/29/londoners-wi-fi-security-herod-clause) "
173 "users to trade their first-born child got consent from plenty of users. Then "
174 "again, when a system is crucial for modern life, like buses and trains, "
175 "users ignore the terms because refusal of consent is too painful to "
180 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:103
182 "To restore privacy, we must stop surveillance before it even asks for "
187 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:112
189 "Finally, don’t forget the software in your own computer. If it is the "
190 "non-free software of Apple, Google or Microsoft, it [spies on you "
191 "regularly](https://gnu.org/malware/). That’s because it is controlled by a "
192 "company that won’t hesitate to spy on you. Companies tend to lose their "
193 "scruples when that is profitable. By contrast, free (libre) software is "
194 "[controlled by its "
195 "users](https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html). "
196 "That user community keeps the software honest."
200 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:117
202 "Richard Stallman is president of the Free "
203 "[Software](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/software) Foundation, "
204 "which launched the development of a free/libre operating system GNU."
208 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:123
210 "Copyright 2018 Richard Stallman. Released under [Creative Commons "
211 "Attribution NoDerivatives License "
212 "4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/). The original English "
213 "version was published in [The "
214 "Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-law-privacy-big-tech-surveillance) "
projects / text-rms-personal-data-safe.git / blob